Maria Volokhova. Stimulating dialogue.

Maria Volokhova, invites us to her next exciting seria of porcelain works. It is exciting to follow her ideas on the border of art and design. 

I am giving full original Maria' explanation of the project as, when you read the story, you understand the designer statement, while you are then inspired for your inner dialogue and and answering your own questions.

The dialogue between objects and viewer is essential of her work.

 

"In this project, Sus, pig (in Latin) and Bonus, extra (but also good, honest, and useful) combine in a series of controversial objects: pigs may be both symbols of luck (‘Schwein gehabt’) but they also denote unsavoury behaviour.

The pig’s head as a teapot/tea set, but also as a light plays on this dichotomy: while lighting and tea drinking are everyday activities, the pig’s head is a ‘bonus’ or luxury object.

First time I came across this image of the pig’s head while travelling in the Ukranian countryside several years ago. It was lying next to a cut of salo, white bacon, a Ukranian delicacy. The image resurfaced in subsequent trips and I decided to portray it in porcelain.

After purchasing a pig’s head in Germany, I was struck by how different it appeared relative to the Ukranian variants. Later I discovered that the living conditions and the average lives of the pigs varied between countries: the Ukranian pigs lived longer and thus the heads she saw exhibited more traces of life than the German pigs.

Sus bonus, like pig’s heads, and like bacon, expresses the idea of a saturated but growing art and design market driven perhaps more by wants than by needs. On the one hand, we continue to buy thus generating and facilitating creativity. On the other hand, objects and forms grow stale and are put out to pasture until they too are but cuts and waste to be bought in a market.

Special thanks for support by Modus Design Studio"

Maria Volokhova, graduated several art schools in Germany, USA, Italy and Japan, exhibiting around the world, from Japan and Korea to Poland, Italy, Germany and UK . Living and working in Berlin, Germany.

Look for more exciting deisgns and stories below: www.volokhova.com