Interview with ABC Melbourne Radio Evenings host David Astle @abcinmelbourne about the upcoming Gather ceramics sculpture exhibition. Click here to listen.
Who’s Treasure we hold.
Ilona Topolcsanyi
Non-recyclable, single use. As conscientious consumers, these are items that we try to avoid buying. Plastic shopping bags, straws, polystyrene packaging, styrofoam takeaway food containers, takeaway coffee and plastic drink cups. On and on the list goes but not for a single second, did it occur to me that my cone stack fell into this category. Well, it didn’t until it did. It was a slow process of self-reflection and realisation that surfaced through my small contribution to Joost Bakker’s Future Foods System Green House.
It began with a chance phone call from a food stylist colleague reaching out on behalf of Jo Barrett, one of two chefs who would be living, cooking, and cultivating a life in ‘The Green House’ - a house of the future, with food and energy systems integrated into the 87sqm concept home built in Melbourne’s, Federation Square, creating all its own energy, food and shelter. A two-bedroom residence made from sustainable materials, each element feeding into the production and sustenance of another part of the building.
‘There are no chemicals, no toxins, no glue,’ explained Joost. ‘The walls have been painted with natural lime, the wall system is made from compressed organic straw and the tiles are made from recycled concrete and can be recycled again.’
I was given a tour of the house and it was a thing of beauty, an oasis right in the heart of the Melbourne’s CBD. Bees, chickens, fish, yabbies, fifty varieties of mushrooms in the ‘Mush Room’, crickets that eat polystyrene, wicking beds with an overabundance of food. Two beautiful light filled bedrooms and a generous north facing kitchen and outdoor area. I really have no idea how they got me to leave.So, what did they want from me? Well, plates of course. The house would host a 12-seat, fine dining restaurant and feature a daily social media post of the dish of the day all focusing on food created from the house with some additional produce bought in from producers that met the project’s sustainable standards.
So here was my dilemma. I really wanted to be a part of this project but if I was being totally honest, I didn’t feel that I measured up. I’d been complacent and not taken responsibility, shielding my practice with the misconception that because I made from earth, that what I did was good for the earth. However, at that moment I was forced to confront many of the failings of my industry.
Pottery is energy intensive, carbon intensive, water intensive and, post-firing, non-recyclable. Some of my raw materials are Australian however that’s were my ‘eco’ credentials end. Many of the basic materials I use are sourced from overseas mines through a complex multinational supply web where it is difficult to map their origins and almost impossible to verify their sustainability or ethicality.
Not letting the perfect get in the way of the good, my work was used in this project because of its existing virtues. High quality tableware that would withstand the test of time, made from predominantly Australian raw materials by local artisans in safe working conditions who were paid fairly for their craftmanship.
However, for me, this whole experience was a catalyst to do better.
But how? “Think Big. Start Small. Learn Fast.”
Starting small meant pocket-sized research projects that I could control and learn from. What I could control was my consumption and my output, what I made, what I sold and, the thing that Joost pulled my focus toward, what I threw away. So began the self-assessment of my studio waste and my attitude toward that waste. Did the concept of waste give me permission to relinquish responsibility for the future of an item? When I decide an object is waste what I’m really saying is that I’ve simply stopped finding a use for that object. What if I removed the finite concept of waste and had a plan for the future of every item I bought before I bought it. What would this thing become once it’s time in my company was complete? Is the idea of waste a modern concept and just what is waste? They say one man's trash is another man's treasure. Should we know who’s treasure we hold?
Oliver Sacks says every significant creation or imaginative enterprise seems to involve a sort of unconscious incubation, when one has to be liberated from any conscious dwelling on the matter, and in a sense be distracted, like the simple act of stepping off a train. For me, it was the distracted mind walking into the kiln room when, from the corner of my eye, scattered haphazardly on my kiln, I caught sight of those little white triangles. I refocused my gaze and they slowly revealed themselves to me. My little gems of resource-rich non-recyclable cone stacks. I don’t know why I keep all my used cones, but I do know that I’m not the only one. Most of us do it. We all have piles of fired cones on our kiln or stashed somewhere in the kiln shed which were generously donated when I called out for them.
Clay has two states of plasticity. The first state, wet clay is the state that responds to touch, to being pushed and pulled, the plastic state we love, and which gives rise to romantic verbs like throwing and sculpting. The second, less talked about state is the pyroplastic state. The nature of ceramic material to soften and melt when fired at high temperature. This mysterious state we have less control over. So much so, that some even make deities as offerings to kiln gods for a safe passage through this journey. More often we only talk about pyroplasticity when things go wrong. We pull out terms like warping, slumping, deforming, and sticking. However, because I wasn’t able to return my fired cone stacks to the first more agreeable loving state, I had to befriend this dreaded second state. And so began the small notebook sized tests on how to re-order and repurpose those objects that were only ever designed to be used once.
What I fed into the kiln, in a random yet organised way, was waste – the kiln then melted, morphed, and created the work. It was a very freeing experience not to be the maker or to be in complete control of the form, almost as though there was an analogue artificial intelligence at work. I simply pre-curated and then fed the machine with enough material so that it could generate a familiar yet completely new form.
This collection of works is an investigation into the repurposing of postproduction pottery studio waste through the pyroclastic nature of clay fired at high temperatures. It by no mean addresses many of the environmental issues that surround my practice, it is simply the first step in acknowledging my contribution to the state of the planet and my responsibility to improve all aspects of my practice.