Sydney industrial designer and UNSW academic Rina Bernabei has turned her hand to ceramics in a new range. So what’s the difference between designing for production and making by hand? We asked her to find out.
Tell us about your industrial design work. And why the move to ceramics?
While, I have always loved ceramics from afar, I actually got into ceramics when I received a grant to do a 3D ceramic printing project. I felt I needed to understand the material more so signed up to a four-week course, which included wheel throwing.
I love the immediacy of ceramics, in industrial design you can design something, and it can take months or years to see the final product, once it has been through prototyping and production. With ceramics, you sit at the wheel and in no time you basically have a product, of course with trimming and finishing still to come, but basically that’s it! This is both thrilling and scary.
What’s different about the process of ceramics versus the design you usually do?
Well as any beginner knows, when you are learning, the clay tells you what you can make, this was really quite confronting to me, as I always would draw up concepts and they got made. For many months I would sit at the wheel, and what was in my head never really eventuated in the clay product. So the process was very different, and I needed to allow the clay to dictate the forms to a large degree. This is still the case of course, but I now can mostly make what I conceive.
Can you talk about what materials you use?
I have always been drawn to Japanese mingei style ceramics, through much travelling in Japan. So when I started in ceramics, even the 3D printed ceramics, I wanted to use stoneware and terracotta. I love the earthiness of these clays. I also love that some of these clays have imperfections – such as speckling and gritty bits – I am definitely not a fine porcelain person. I am also very interesting in pairing this with digital fabrication, and other forms of crafts such as basketry, and I have had a few exhibitions of this work.
How did you approach the design of this series? What’s it called?
I don’t know if I call this a series – maybe because I don’t think I am really a ceramicist – I am an industrial designer working in clay. I am still trying to find my visual language in this medium, which changes if it’s hand thrown or 3D printed. This body of work definitely embraces the organic nature of the material and the non-mass manufacture in terms of its forms and finishes.
How does this work tie-in with your teaching work at UNSW – if at all?
So it has really been interesting how ceramics is becoming part of all my practice and research. In terms of teaching, I am a firm advocate of the making process informing the design, and industrial designers working directly with material not just designing on the computer. I have introduced making into my studios in all mediums, more so than in the past. Students who have ceramic elements in their work seek my advice and I also work with fourth-year students who I think now feel braver to undertake a ceramic project. I also think my industrial design/ceramic work is a bit of a role model for alternate pathways in the industrial designer career.
Also in terms of my academic research, ceramics, handcrafts and the cross-over with digital fabrication, (hybrid product design) has become an area I am doing a lot of work in. This year I was invited to Kyushu University to give a lecture on my 3D printed ceramics, and meet local ceramicists, and I will be retuning in late January to run a project in Kyushu with regards to ceramics and digital fabrication.
Where do you sell it?
I currently sell it at the Object shop, and at T Totaler in the Galleries Victoria. I also have been part of a pop up with Kil.n.it shared ceramic studios in Glebe. I have had lots of places offer to take my stuff, but I don’t want to be only making to fill orders, as this is not my only work commitment so I think next year I will need to really think about what the best outlets are for me.
What do you hope for this work moving forward?
I’m really looking forward to working with local ceramicists in Japan early in the year and hopefully continuing this into an exhibition of works.
I also want to refine what I make and perhaps develop a more individualistic style. I have a few ceramic projects underway with bernabeifreeman, and some prominent homeware companies, and hopefully they will come to fruition.
More on Rina Bernabei