RAD2024

Priska Falin

Research Through Art & Design course introduces a variety of approaches, methodologies, issues and concerns in research through practice. In this course, research through practice refers to a broad continuum of artistic research approaches, arts-based, practice-led and -based research approaches, including also constructive design research approaches that are relevant across practices in Aalto University ARTS School of Arts, Design and Architecture. This exposition was created within an Artistic Practice Workshop offered as an additional part of the main course. During this part of the course, the students are familiarised with the Research Catalogue. During the workshop, participants work on their page within a group exposition, drawing connections between the creative and the given or discussed literature from the course and their creative practice.

Local, 2025

Practice-led Ceramic Research by Seoyoung Lee

What would happen if we re-contextualised the Earth as an extraterrestrial object?

Local is a practice-led research project that explores the convergence of materials, places and planetary imagination through ceramic practice. Starting with clay collected from a construction site in Otaniemi, Finland, the project examines how local earth can be transformed into speculative matter, raising questions that lie between the terrestrial and the extraterrestrial.

My artistic practice has expanded from this idea to consider outer space as a material, not just as a context or destination, but as a conceptual and metaphorical substance. Clay, soil and minerals are considered as remnants of cosmic history that can bridge geological truths and planetary fiction.

This ongoing exploration has led to the concept of 'space-ware': a speculative ceramic category that redefines creation as an act of planetary attunement. Rather than offering solutions, the work invites reflection on materiality, time and how we inhabit worlds both real and imagined.

1. Material Research

The bricks are mixed with Finnish slip that i’ve collected from the construction site in Otaniemi, more hematite, limestone, magnesite and

rutile to replicate the regolith on Mars.

2. Design Development

Four hundred and sixteen bricks are made from Finnish clay to recreate the First TV Image of Mars (Hand Colored), 1965, NASA

5 types of sample

1. Fin 900°C

2. Fin 1020°C

3. Fin-Mars 900°C

4. Fin-Mars 5% Quartz+Soda 900°C

5. Fin-Mars 5% Quartz+Soda 1020°C

3. Making Process

Collect → Mix → Sample Test → Mix → Shape → Dry → Fire

Serendipity

*Egyption fience(Self-glazing)

Around 4,000 BCE, Egyptian faience, a glazing or coating, was invented for colouring, decorating or waterproofing ceramic items, usually fused on. Before glass was discovered, Egyptians used glazing to make containers, combining silica, lime and soda. Lime and soda move to the surface when drying, and a crust forms when fired at over 800 °C, protecting the piece from the atmosphere. The lime also makes the piece less dense.

Sample 5.

Fin-Mars - 5% Quartz + 5% Soda - 1020°C

4. Results

416 pieces of 25✕15✕57 mm, which is a typical Finnish brick composition.

Tip

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