Vol. 9 No. 17 (2022): No. 17 - (E) - may / 2022
The material we are made of - Understanding to create.
Paola Nuovo
Ceramics have been linked to the history of humanity since ancient times. The oldest known remains are those of a bowl found in the caves of Xianredong, Jiangxi province, China, dating from about 20 million years ago. We are talking here that our ancestors already developed production of pottery in the Upper Palaeolithic. This can be considered as one of the first technological revolutions of humanity given that ?in addition to funerary containers, amulets and female deities 31 thousand years old?, the working of clay helped to provide necessary and efficient utensils to transport, preserve and distribute water and food (also cook the latter). Not to mention the importance of ceramic material in construction, in all scales, uses and times. The relationship between ceramics and humanity even permeates several mythologies about creation through the intervention of gods, who shaped the first human beings from clay or used processes analogous to those of pottery (see the Genesis of the Judeo-Christian Bible, or the myths of Babylon and Sumer, or in the text of the Popol Vuh, of the Quiché of pre-Columbian Guatemala).
This gives the ceramic material and its elaboration techniques a halo of proximity to the primordial human that cannot be found in the most recent and increasingly far from any natural origin materials that have superseded the intensive use of ceramics at an industrial production level, such as plastics or fiberglass. Just think of a majority of the utensils that have to do directly with the intimacy of our physical dimension: the plates from which we take our food; the glasses and cups from which we drink; the bathtub, the bidet or even the toilet where we rest the body, the sink where we sanitize parts of it. We normally accept all of this as made of ceramic and that's enough; any other material would seem ?strange? to us. This aura or 'proximity halo' (or intimacy, almost genealogical and of certain symbolic power) is one of the strengths we can count on from the very moment we decide to work with clay, as unitary or massive production.
Another strength of the material derives from its relatively high and extremely personalized ?from a geographical point of view? availability, which makes it possible, either its direct extraction by the one who desire to apply its ?will to shape? on it (and thus getting a significant reduction in production costs), either the exploitation of the unique characteristics derived from the soil components of the extraction locality. The latter, in particular, is the fundamental reason why ceramic designers must understand in depth the structural qualities of the material they deal with and the physical-chemical processes that take place during the production process, so as not only to achieve optimum result but to introduce innovations in its field of application. The 3D printers using clay instead of PLA filament and the experiments in the field of architecture with giant 3D printers construction-oriented take even further this need for the involvement of the professional, the designer, the craftsman, the artist, the maker in short, with the ceramic material, in order to deal with the intermediary software provided with sufficient knowledge and security.
Without this vision, without this drive to understand in depth the material being worked on ?to understand its limits and possibilities down to molecular levels, if you will?, it would be unthinkable the manufacture of large-format porcelain stoneware, in slabs reaching 118 x 59 inches, or technical porcelain tiles, highly resistant to bending, just to mention two examples of industrial production for the construction market. This without excusing a bit those who work unique pieces on the throwing wheel at their own studio, or those who venture into formal experiments before the interface of a 3D graphics program, in the stages prior to materializing the object.
Despite the current commercial panorama, occupied mainly by the novelty of synthetic materials and computerized gadgets, the designer who wishes to enter the world of ceramics faces, today, a great diversity of application spaces for the already acquired knowledge, as well as a wide variety of technological resources, from the control of materials in industrial establishments to autonomous artistic creation, from construction-oriented design to the medical design of bone prostheses. Or research in fields ranging from thermal shields for aerospace industry to materials interaction in high-end portable technology (such as ceramic nanocrystals in the Apple iPhone ?Ceramic Shield?).
But the fundamental remains still the knowledge of the material, our intimacy with it, our understanding of it: this clay that shapes us, this fire that consumes us, all of which will end up constituting, in turn, the material of our knowledge, thus closing a circle that has opened a long, long time ago. And which keeps spinning. Like the Earth itself.
Published: 2022-05-01
Full Issue
Table of Contents
Ariel Curbelo
Gladys Parrado
Abstract
The development of close relations of exchange and collaboration between the University and Society are a priority to achieve a high development of the agreement between the Keracom Extension Project and the Higher Institute of Design of the University of Havana (ISDI-UH), therefore that this work shows the experiences between both.
The ISDi-UH is a university where joint work is not only between the teaching of the academy, but also with research and fundamentally with extension.
The collaboration is fruitful for both parties since joint projects are developed, work with the students and workers of the Institute in order to rescue the craft of ceramics, facilitate the interaction of students with the community in order to help change aesthetic tastes and formal, as well as taking into account design aspects for the objects that are made in the project, in their homes or in their workplaces.
The image of military youth in the history of artistic ceramics.
Bordushevich Ekaterina
Abstract
The topic aroused great interest among many generations of young people and is still relevant today. The war period associated with the events of the Great Patriotic War occupies a special place in the history of Russian art, in particular due to the development of the sculptural genre.
In time, the heroic images of sculpture were embodied not only in monumental and decorative works of art, but also in "small" plastic works. The war that entered each house required emotional and figurative expression in the daily space of the houses.
Book: Adolescent mothers in institutions: the manufacture of ceramics and the creation of the self.
Rosilda Sá Gonçalves
Abstract
The book presents a rich theoretical and legal exposition of the aspects that circumscribe early motherhood during adolescence in the context of institutional care and highlights, based on the literature, the importance of artistic activities in the pedagogical projects developed in NGOs working with minors at risk.
Through the intervention of the artist-researcher, the place of the investigation was the ceramic workshop, focused on the materiality of clay and on this traditional language of the Visual Arts. It took place in a reception unit for minors (under a judicial protection measure) maintained by a Catholic NGO in Paraíba (Brazil). From listening and playing with the clay (the CERAMICAR), he analyzed the verbal expressions (also the silences) and the plastic (artistic) expressions of three protected adolescent mothers.
Mixing different epistemological fields ? the conceptions of creativity proposed by Donald Winnicott (Psychoanalysis, the maturation process), and by Fayga Ostrower (Art, the artistic process), associated with the collected data, Rosilda Sá answered the following questions:
1. What contents do adolescent mothers express, considering the context of institutional reception in which they live?
2. What does each one do with the clay that can express an artistic creation and favor the creation of the self?
3. Could an intervention through listening and playing with clay work as a ?potential space? and help the subjects start their lives when they live the simultaneous context of adolescence and motherhood?
Juan M. Oliveras
Abstract
For the designer of or in ceramics, knowledge of the properties, limitations and shape possibilities of ceramic materials is necessary to determine the shapes, processes and finishes of the products and thus offer satisfactory goods proposals to the users of a product. certain group. This book addresses methods for solving design problems, describes materials (earths or nonmetallic minerals), and explains how water, air, and fire affect their plasticity, shrinkage, and hardening. The processes of manual forming, compression or pressing, manual and mechanical turning, casting and extrusion are shown and exemplified, as well as ways of producing forms that can be complemented with finishes and glazes, which facilitate the use, hygiene and appearance of ceramic products. Topics are also covered on the tools and equipment necessary for ceramic modeling and molding, defects and controls in production; Also, the issue of safety in the use of materials is addressed. Three short annexes are included on human factors, machinery and equipment, and a series of flow diagrams of the production process of ceramic objects.
