R E S I D E N C Y 2022
ARTISTS
JESS FUGLER
Jess Fügler is an American designer based in New York. Her work explores ideas of narrative, process, and meaning in domestic objects and is inspired by past and current cultures, industrial production and handcraft. Internationally trained, Jess holds a Master’s degree in Design Products from the Royal College of Art in London, a Bachelor’s in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute.
WET COILS 2022 As a designer, my work requires me to be precise and in control of the process and materials in order to get a desired result. By unlearning this practice of control, I let the nature of the clay and gravity form the final object. Starting with a concept sketch, I work quickly rolling the wet clay into spiraling, coiled forms. The forms are not adjusted or analyzed after building but instead they are left alone where the coils often droop, fold onto themselves, and crack while drying. The fired ceramic results are preserved moments in time, showing the natural material movement of the clay and playfulness of unlearning as a designer.
GUGLIELMO BRAMBILLA
Guglielmo Brambilla is an Italian designer, experienced in the fields of accessories,furniture, lighting, and installations. Trained in Italy and Denmark, he worked for NicholaiWiig Hansen, Philippe Malouin, Fabrica, and Bethan Laura Wood. His research stems from materials and from the processes which transform them intoartefacts. He is fascinated by material culture, by the narrative power of objects, and bythe rituals related to them.
CLAY BATTER 2022 Clay batter investigates the human need to control nature and its cycles, our attempt to possess and preserve it because of the inability to accept and appreciate its impermanence, here represented by the juxtaposition of fresh and dried plants, of raw and fired clay.
MARIA HOWARD
Maria Howard is a British-Italian writer and artist based in Glasgow. Her practice is largely concerned with the links between memory, water and place and how they intersect with the climate crisis. This is explored through her critical-creative writing and her experiments with 'wild' clay that aim to locate a connection to place through sculpture and printmaking. She is an associate editor of Nothing Personal magazine and also works as a freelance writer and translator.
SOFT QUARRY 2022 Installation Soft Quarry (Column Party!) she engages with a classical architectural element that has been endlessly revived to become a nostalgic symbol of empire, power, capital and culture. Using clay extracted from the Taatisten lake, her columns undermine the grandiosity of the archetype, through abjection and playfulness; they lean, bend and sometimes slump under their own weight and often appear rough or unfinished.
ELLIOTT DENNY
Elliott Denny is a British designer and artist based in London. Working mainly with clay he creates sculptural ceramics and homeware inspired by details from the built environment, mechanical components and natural landscapes. His practise is driven by process, utilising a range of production methods, often building or adapting his own machines, combining old and new technologies.
He has exhibited at the British Ceramics Biennial and during London Design Festival, London Craft Week and undertaken a residency at the International Ceramics Research Centre, Denmark.
ALEX SIMPSON
Alex Simpson is a British artist based in London. Her work spans painting, drawing, sculpture and installation with a focus on clay. She is particularly interested in the transitional nature of clay from soft, to hard, fluid to plastic, impermanent to permanent. Her approach shifts between intuitive and controlled, to allow the unknown to enter into the creative process and think through making. She looks to create a sense of uncertainty; an ambiguity of form or surface, referencing the body, landforms and water. She is a graduate of the Royal College of Art, London and the University of Brighton.
SOFT UNDERSTANDING 2022 Beneath the shallow waters of the lake lies an expanse of soft blue material. Raised up and out of the water and dropped onto the hard ground it becomes cool to the touch, satisfyingly squelchy. Slathered in your hands, left to dry, pale grey, it flakes off as you move with a satisfying crack and crunch. Hands stained with a faint dusky orange residue.
TOURISTES TRISTES
Océane Bruel and Dylan Ray Arnold are visual artists based in Helsinki, collaborating as Touristes Tristes (since 2014) alongside their individual practices. They share a material-poetic approach to sculpture, assemblage, installation and printed matter. Dylan and Océane are interested in the everyday ecology of material spirits; looking for familiar and dreamlike forms and compositions of intimacy, distance and belonging.
Their work has been presented in solo exhibitions at the Helsinki Art Museum gallery, 2020, at Glassbox, Paris 2019, at Titanik Gallery, Turku, 2017, and in group exhibitions in the Nordic countries and in France.
HANNA-KAISA KOROLAINEN
Hanna-Kaisa Korolainen is Finnish multidisciplinary artist, designer, and researcher. She has been showing her artworks in exhibitions in Finland and abroad, from Beijing to Milan and New York. Her latest exhibitions include, for example, EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Design Museum Helsinki, Craft Museum of Finland, Ostrobothnian Museum, historical art nouveau site Hvitträsk or Collectible Fair in Brussels.
WREATH OF DARKNESS 2022 In her installation Wreath of Darkness Hanna-Kaisa Korolainen investigates weathering memories, and longing for a time that never existed. These elements from a fictional past manifest themselves in Korolainen's works with exaggerated decorativeness. The result resembles a sorrowful time travel to utopia.
VISITING ARTIST
EVE HAMARI
Eve Hamari is a Finnish textile designer and artist. Her work is inspired by the everyday aesthetics and the stories carried by materials. Especially memories resonating from used and discarded materials are in the centre of Eve's prints and installations. Eve works and lives in Helsinki but is greatly influenced by her childhood home filled with wildflowers and kind sheep of Kostula village in Hämeenkyrö, Finland. At the moment in the centre of Eve's work is communication between different species, connection to nature and her childhood pet sheep Pilvi.
During her stay at Taattisten Tila Eve will create installation to the Taattinen farm estate. The installation will explore topics as the traditional women chore of doing laundry and food and shelter experiences to the sheep and chickens.
Eve Hamari
Eve Hamari
Eve Hamari