Description
The Unpacked series began in 2020 as part of Julie & Jesse’s reflection on the artists’ own consumption habits during the pandemic years, exploring the materials that could be extracted from their daily lives for creative purposes. One of the most ubiquitous items found in their studio and home was honeycomb paper wrappers made from recycled cardboard boxes. Through extensive experimentation, they successfully created ceramic “fossils” of these fillers, resembling the process of tree petrification. Rather than having silica to document the decayed wood, Unpacked achieves this transformation in quicktime by having the cardboard absorb clay into its pores in the firing process. As the cardboard disintegrates completely, the resulting form becomes a raw record of the source material. The technique used in the process does not require a mould, allowing for greater flexibility in the shapes that can be achieved. Julie & Jesse has unlocked a new way of ceramic making while reassigning value to a material that was assumed to have reached the end of its lifecycle.
