Precarity Structures
These sculptures are part of my ongoing project, "Longing for [Steady-State] Creep Rupture," which will include 20-30 ceramic objects. The project aims to represent objects that evoke varied degrees of social oppression or economic alienation, such as surveillance towers, shopping carts, police barricades and office chairs. The chosen objects are spindly in form, making them challenging to sculpt in clay and push the limits of the material's structural capabilities. This process amplifies a sense of precarity, with ceramic melting into twisted forms that capture a state near failure. The project's title references the second phase of creep rupture, where infrastructure material or machine components degrade over time due to stress. It also serves as a double entendre, holding a desire: How might we achieve the collapse of oppressive systems without descending into total anarchy?
Study for creep rupture 01
2024
Glazed ceramic
19.5” x 12.5” x 12.5”
Photography credit: Matthew Bailey
Study for creep rupture 02 & 03
2024
Glazed ceramic, steel, brass
14” x 16” x 8”
11” x 10.5” x 5.5”
Photography credit: Matthew Bailey
Shopping for creep rupture
2024
Glazed ceramic, sand
12" x 16" x 11"
20" x 16" x 13"
I’m currently experimenting with display methods with these baskets, including placing them in a pile of sand to evoke a dystopian or utopian future where remnants of consumerism are found in a desert. Sand is intriguing as it represents both uninhabitable ruin and unlimited potential. It is a foundational raw material for our built environment—without it, we wouldn’t have concrete, glass, or computers, or the many products and infrastructure those materials enable. I’ve also installed these baskets inside storefront doors to mimic real shopping baskets. Viewers often struggle to resist picking them up, a subconscious behavior ingrained from years of shopping. As fused ceramic sculptures, this impulse is disrupted, creating an effect on the viewer that I find compelling.
