A studio that does deep dives into things, with a dual outcome: narratives and prototypes.
The narrative part (A) aims to gather existing evidence and provide context for the thing, but also navigate the murky, self-conscious waters of its representation, to twist and remix, and concoct a visually potent archive. It aims to answer the question: 'so what is the thing, and how can it be known?'. It also assists in overall documentation and constructs a visual language for showcasing the project deliverables.
The prototyping (B) runs parallel to its narrative counterpart, but concerns itself more with actionable interventions within the topic (whenever it makes sense). It can also provide tools for materializing the outcomes of the narrative part (as exhibitions, for example). It aims to answer a question: 'but how do we then ...'
The parts A and B coexist on rolling basics; the work is accumulated in a growing body of knowledge and can be periodically shared and commercialized as publications, exhibitions, objects (prototypes?).

Together, parts a and B ruminate on a specific theme, but with a focus on phenomena that are experiencable locally (in order to activate local networks). Those themes are co-curated.

PULVERIZED EARTHS > LIQUID BODIES > MAN-MADE ROCKS
Negotiating extraction in the context of a contemporary ceramic practice.

(general) A making-augmented meditation on extracting from the liquid, solid and human bodies; an interrogation of global/local resource economics and the designers' partaking in it.

(specific) through (...) in the context of (...)

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NOTES ON CERAMICS

At its core, ceramics is turning solid rock into soft substance, then back into solid state again, using artificial heat that comes from burning long dead bodies (electric kiln). Is an interesting process, because it directly binds one to archaic time; it is about matter and energy as much as it is about time itself.

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GENERAL QUESTIONS / IDEAS

• How to engage in a non-extractive conversation with a liquid body?
• What is a ceramics that respects the ecological and ontological subjectivites of all parties involved? How does that process look?
• Why make?
• Could ceramics serve as a tool for marking permanence in a world that's liquid? A tool for making meaning? A meditation? A language?
• Ceramics as optics, not a hylomorphic process. Could the relevance for making stem from its investigative purpose?
• How could a ceramic process be a lens for reclamation of meaning and autonomy?

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ISSUES / CONCERNS

Still missing urgency in the context of ceramics
'Ceramics' is just a template here
So far, this sounds familiar to many existing works (Atelier NL, BP)

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GENERAL AREAS FOR SECONDARY RESEARCH + THINKING

1. The oldest story: the strata, the deposits, and the econtologies of a liquid body.
2. Ape stories: the human-ceramic affiliations, both mainstream and decentralized, technical and spiritual
3. The contemporary stories. The 'real economy', the alienated atomisation, the politics and urban adaptation.

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FIRST-HAND RESEARCH

Make attempts on 'non-extractive' conversations and document them in a transparent way.

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OUTCOMES

A process
A collection
A book(let)

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RANDOM

• Clay tablets

We can't add value to what's there, but we can provide tools (information) to open up ways of thinking about that piece of forest (any forest).

Forest as
A lab
A sensorium
A site of production
A home and a being

We can act as translators to tell the stories that the forest has to tell, using means of storytelling it provides. For visitors, forest becomes a place not to wonder of, or consume, but be part of; for us it's a production site, but an exercise in regeneration.