Désirée Coral

Ceramics in Relationship to Color as Traveler: how color crosses geographic, geologic, and cultural boundaries

February 12, 2022

Summary:

Written summary of the group conversation

Select Readings:

What is Local? Looking at Ceramic Production in the Peruvian Highlands and Beyond (Isabelle Druc)

The Crane and the Nopal: Aztec Memory and Chinese Imagery in Talavera Poblana (Juliana Fagua Arias)

Allpa Mama: relaciones sociedad-naturaleza, procesos sociales y agencialidad (Anna Premauer y Natalia Valdivieso) 

Discussion Guide:

Color as Traveler: how color crosses geographic, geologic, and cultural boundaries

About the topic

Color is far more than the physical reflection of light on a surface: color is material. How much do we know about the colors that have landed in our ceramics studios? What are their original sources? Which materials are local and which are imported? What are their narrative trajectories? The colors incorporated into/onto ceramic objects can frequently be traced back to geologically formed non-renewable resources, which then journey via human hand through time and across geographies.  

Referencing stories about elements such as cobalt, iron, chrome, or copper, this State of Ceramics conversation will delve into the relationship between color, culture, and the environment, and consider the ways in which a personal and political understanding of color can complicate and enhance an otherwise technical and aesthetic approach. The histories of color in ceramic objects reveal our movement, dependence, and impact upon the earth, and our interconnectedness as humans. What will color reveal about us and our practices in the future?

About the Lead Artist

Désirée Coral (b. 1981 in Quito, Ecuador) earned her MFA in Ceramics from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, was a student at the Moncloa School of Ceramics in Madrid (where she learned “the craft”), and completed her undergraduate studies in Visual Arts at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Quito. Coral is currently a PhD candidate at the Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design at the University of Dundee in Scotland UK, where she investigates the material relationship between human and non-human beings through color and its materiality. She has exhibited and published internationally.