28 Sep – 10 Nov 2013

Bastards & Orphans/ In Dust We Trust
British Ceramics Biennial, Spode factory site, Stoke-on-Trent, UK

“Operation SPODE/ In Dust We Trust” is a summary of a few days of 2013 spent casting from the dusty moulds abandoned in the Spode factory (†2008) in Stoke-on-Trent in Great Britain. It is a part of a larger project called “Bastards & Orphans” that involves casting from decayed moulds abandoned at the sites of bankrupt European porcelain factories.

The essence of the project is examining what is left in both the material and intellectual sense, on these sites; observing the processes taking place there and asking about the place of art, design, intellectual property in the life of contemporary society; their value, their meaning and their future. The objects themselves are not the main focus of the project. They are used as a medium that carries a record of the entire history of the factory in all its stages.

Patuszyńska understands that a factory becomes brain dead the moment the last staff member leaves the building and padlocks the door. But other vital organs survive through transference. The contents of that space immediately begin an incremental process of rebirth via natural mutation. The heart continues to beat and lungs still gasp for air. Oxidation becomes the primary life giver. Mold adds growing patches of green and brown, metals rust, wood splinters and rots, leaking roofs spread water that in turn serves decay. Rats move in, insects thrive. As plaster molds erode, they curiously begin to resemble ancient bones. All of this is evidence that a new, vigorous cycle of life has begun. And given enough time, everything manmade will be either gone or unrecognizable. Garth Clark, Editor CFile
cfileonline.org/exhibition-monika-patuszynska-orphans-bastards