“French Landscape: Connection and Collection”

It is human nature to desire to preserve a unique personal experience. Travellers throughout history have returned with ‘souvenirs’ in commemoration of and desire to both retain and share a memory of their experiences. Ceramic artefacts are considered to be uniquely significant in an archaeological and historical context as a means of providing important clues and memories of the way of life of cultures and civilisations throughout the ages.

The project “French Landscape: Connection and Collection” aims to further investigate the idea of ‘memory-traces’ and the idea of commemoration. My intention will be to construct a new series of works from collected objects that directly relate to my experience as an‘outsider’, traversing two distinctly different geographical and cultural regions with their own specific and unique cultural signifiers.

The project does not intend to commemorate this experience via literal representation of the physical landscape but rather to create a metaphorical landscape created by means of a “membrane memory” of objects that signify and form a connection between people and place.


"Conserve Memory"

This work is about the conservation of memory.

The lace fabric I used is made of repeated floral patterns. I cut out the motifs and transform them into ceramic pieces. And then the ceramic pieces are sewn back onto where the motifs appeared on the fabric.

These floral motifs are made by machines: each one is exactly like the others. However, after they are transformed by my slip method to become ceramics, they retain a likeness to their origin, yet each piece differs from the other. The sizes of the ceramic pieces have shrunk during the firing, but they all bear a more organic outlook. The transformed pieces strike an interesting contrast to their original patterns.

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My work is an investigation of how an object can become a tool for memory. The tactility of ceramics makes ceramics an appropriate medium for this task. Memory is not just about remembering it is also about forgetting/loss. The characteristic of my working process is that it encompasses both remember and forgetting/loss.

I dip objects in slip and fire them. In the process, the object is consumed by fire and lost. The slip seeps into the pores of the object and becomes hard after firing. A thin "shell" is thus created. While the "shell" is not exactly a copy of the original object, it looks very much like it. This process registers the simultaneous remembering and forgetting of an object.


- Sara Tse

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For further information, please contact:

Canada: tel: (1) 604.688.2633, fax: (1) 604.688.2685