Installation - uniVERset

uniVERset, the installation of Júlia Néma has a dual purpose. On the one hand, it commemorates UNISET-212, the food service tableware set designed by Éva Ambrus between 1976 and 1977 (find it here). On the other hand it answers the question: how can we make mass-produced, larg-scale objects unique? The solution of Néma was purchasing UNISET-212 bisqueware (ware that has been fired once) from Alföld Porcelain Factory and instead of firing the pieces with glaze for the second time, she applied the traditional wood firing method. With this process Néma avoided the snow-white, uniformed result and gave unique heat marks, ash layers and even shape deformities for all pieces.

In her DLA research and later published book Néma inquired into the traditional, high temperature wood firing methods and their historical, aesthetical, philosophical and technical aspects focusing on the East Asian ceramic art (see here and here). The thesis of Néma is that heat marks, ash layers and deformities – as she named them "pyrograms" after the word photogram – make the ceramics uniqe because the result of wood firing can not be fully reproducible. By applying this method to the iconic set of Éva Ambrus, Néma transformed its pieces autonomous works of art.

The firing process of certain pieces of uniVERset has wide horizons in space and time: Néma bought the objects in Hódmezővásárhely and delivered them to the studio of Frederick L. Olsen ceramist in California. While the porcelaines had been fired for three days on 1350 °C in the special anagama kiln, the ashes of tamarisk and ponderosa pine trees melted on the surface, resulting fiery orange colours, dark green shades evoking the effects of salt glaze. The cool perfection of snow-white porcelain burnt in gas kiln next to wood-fired ceramics forms a sharp contrast in the installation.

For more information about the artworks of Júlia Néma, see here and here.