Ceramic Practices, Geomorphology and The Sea (2024)

The project, “Ceramic Practices, Geomorphology, and the Sea: an Artistic Research and Transdisciplinary Exchange Residency in the Aniene River Basin, Italy,” was carried out as part of a residency between December 2023 and March 2024 within LaValle, “International Festival of Artistic Research, Public Art, and Community-Engaged Practices”, organized by L’Aquila Reale, Centro d’Arte e Natura.

During this time I deepened a process of cultural exchange, collaborative work, and artistic research through ceramics, exploring co-creation and the dialogue between arts and science.

The residency sought to expand my artistic-scientific practice in sculptural ceramics through an encounter with the Neolithic marine paleolandscape of central Italy. I explored ceramic traditions from Neolithic cardial ceramics and classical antiquity to contemporary practices, while also looking at how clays are used scientifically to trace heavy-metal contamination and reconstruct past oceanographic currents.

The work unfolded through a series of actions: research in archives, museums, and laboratories; field exploration along the Aniene River basin, visiting archaeological sites, natural parks, and clay deposits; conversations with artists and scientists within the festival; and an art-science workshop with a local community centered on clay and ceramics, which generated a visual and haptic research journal as well as an exploratory body of ceramic sculptures. Here I share some moments of the research process: