Ceramic residency and land art installations in Hungary

May 2024

An installation of receptive and wide ‘earth prayer bowls’, to give voice to a deeper place, low to the ground, expressing the language of the Earth

Working with local Hungarian and ground up baked clays (grog), South African rock pigments and wild harvested clays from around the local countryside, these receptive and wide vessels were created as ‘earth prayer bowls’, to give voice to a deeper place, low to the ground, expressing both the language of the earth, and my own silent words and feelings as an artist and a human being walking on this earth. During my ceramic residency at ICS Hungary, the landscape and my surroundings gave a visual direction and orientation to the collection of bowls, employing a place-based approach and through embodied, meditative body movements, built up swirls of raw clay in a circular motion to mimic the geological processes of earth forming strata. Moving between mind and body, clay and breath, moving in circles shaping clay outward. Every still starting point comes from nothing, deep frictions of earth layers, moving, shaping, joining, this project was a sinking into the work of ancient soil and soul forming.

Geological considerations:
It felt important to integrate soils and rocks from both continents in this fine project, as a Polish-born immigrant with an upbringing in South Africa, I incorporated earth material from Europe and Africa to symbolise my dual affiliations to each land mass.

Each prayer bowl was an invitation to remember, through the materiality of clay, ancient earth-honouring traditions that innately understood our interconnection with the environment and honoured the endless generosity of the natural world through ritual objects and ceremonies. Each piece has been imparted with an energy of this honouring and presence. Each bowl is an archetype of internal space, a holding of inner life and mystery, the circularity and round shape of each piece are allusions to the endless cycles of the natural world, and in a modern linear time of increasing fragmentation and dissolution, returning to the symbol of the circle again and again and the rounded wholeness it symbolises, is an honest and silent remembering of our place within this circular geological time, where everything is in motion and somehow connected.

Installation:
These bowls were installed at a local arboretum and the ICS ceramic center in Kecskemét, an earth prayer made with the earth element in mind, and used to create a slow and considered series of works that stayed close to the ground, somehow giving voice to the earth beneath our feet, whilst still remaining open, receptive and silent. It is this dual aspect of the natural world that I find so calming, it’s infinite complexity and ever-changing nature, whilst holding the stillness and solace that deeply resonates within our souls whenever we quieten ourselves enough to hear these rhythms. This body of work was a prayer in clay form to the Earth element, the final of my residencies as part of the Develop Your Creative Practice, from Arts Council England.

Let us remember within us
The ancient clay,
Holding the memory of seasons,
The passion of the wind,
The fluency of water,
The warmth of fire,
The quiver-touch of the sun
And shadowed sureness of the moon.

That we may awaken,
To live to the full
The dream of the Earth
Who chose us to emerge
And incarnate its hidden night
In mind, spirit, and light.

~ John O’Donohue ~

(To Bless the Space Between Us)