MA Thesis project
The Terrestrial-ware series of ceramic vessels uses imitation, material mixing, forming, and firing to reimagine land and resources under off-world conditions. Each piece begins with a simple shift in perspective: rather than making form to a menu or culture, what happens if we design for a sealed habitat with unreliable gravity and rationed resources?
In this context, a vessel is not just a container; it becomes an indicator that reveals and tests environmental constraints. Using Finnish clay, I created simulants of lunar and Martian regolith and transformed them into ceramics, treating them as mediators, a way to experience what we cannot yet touch.
Three plates, a constellation, each reveals a fragment of experience in the forest. That time lying against a rock beneath the trees, gazing up at the sky. I felt the finitude of my own body. Relentless time passes through me, a single point, at constant speed. From the sky, ancient starlight descends. From the earth, future catastrophe or new life rises. I lie between them.
This project explores the reformation of memory and resurgence of sensation through wild herbs growing on the post-landfill site. Once polluted with toxic gas, Vuosaari’s landfill has now become clean, providing habitat for species and creating a new ecosystem.
Using clay from Otaniemi, these miniature bricks have been crafted to recreate the first TV image of Mars sent to NASA in 1965. The material is mixed with Finnish slip, as well as additional hematite, limestone, magnesite and rutile, in order to replicate the regolith on Mars.
