Maru Meleniou · CLIENT: Maru Meleniou Ceramic art &design lab
Throbbing Stillness is part of a series of vessels exploring abstract ideas, concepts and existential questions. The paradox of Throbbing Stillness is that instead of the expected functionality of a flower vase, it implies the existence of a space capable to contain further communication with the viewer. Through its organic form it manages to transcend the rigidity of the medium and it seems to be vibrating with vital energy. Its shape and color highlight concepts such as emptiness, potentiality, expansion.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Throbbing Stillness is not the vessel that flowers will be beautifully arranged in. Throbbing Stillness is a vessel that aims to contain abstract ideas, thoughts and images. A vessel that contemplates the concept of "vessility".
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Height 40cm
- Tags
- Sculptural vessel, Naked ceramics, Contemporary Ceramics, Handbuilt ceramics, Raw minimalism, Slow design
- Production Technology
- It is a hand-build ceramic vessel, with the coiling technique, an ancient technique that involves creating forms without a pottery wheel, using the hands, fingers, and simple tools. That way small details, differences imperfections and qualities mirror the honesty of the creative process. A slow almost meditative process that after years of practise creates a unique relationship between artist and medium.
I used stoneware clay and painted it with porcelain slip, glazed and fired at 1220C - Design Challenge
- The most challenging part was to work on the piece as much as I would not manipulate clay to the point that it would lose its properties and its own life and substance. To create an object that carries the message powerfully. An object simple in form and yet not simplistic.
- Project Duration
- Throbbing Stillness was created in 2020 in Athens, and was exhibited in Milan Design Week 2021 at 1000Vases
- Operation Flow
- Human beings are designed to communicate.
We define ourselves through relationships and interactions with our environment, with others, with the objects that surrounds us.
Throbbing Stillness is a unique object that aims to offer a space for connection, an invitation to interact. - Research
- I am interested in the materiality of my medium and I wish to highlight its raw nature and properties. After practising with a variety of colors and glazes I realised that all this would be a kind of cover up, making it hard for the medium to carry its message. So I decided to move forward with my material being almost naked.
- Inspiration
- My inspiration comes from the book White by Kenya Hara, Zen Buddhism and the human body.
In the field of ceramics, one creates forms to contain the emptiness. The purpose of a vessel is to hold nothingness within, a purpose greater than its function. White is delicate, fragile and from the moment of its birth it is destined to be “polluted”. My vessel is not trying to be a perfect white, rather it carries a layering, in an attempt to search for a way to feel whiteness.
A vessel, a human heart, a vital organ, or a musical instrument always inhaling/exhaling, pulsating in a space of closeness and familiarity yet distant and unknown. A space out of time, far from personal feelings and agendas that is dedicated to personal contemplation. - Image Credits
- Image No1, No2, No3 No4 Nikos Koustenis
Image No5 Maru Meleniou
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