«Sprouting» is a series of assemblage bases for kenzan, created from fragments of broken asphalt found near the university. These pieces of urban environment have been transferred into porcelain: the rough, heavy, and random form has become a fragile, elegant, and almost precious object.
The project is inspired by how plants in the real world break through asphalt, stones, walls, and other hard surfaces of the urban environment. However, the focus of the work shifts away from the drama of overcoming or the violence of the breakthrough, focusing instead on the moment of transformation: from resistance, composition is born; from a crack, form emerges; and from urban chance, ikebana takes shape.
Porcelain functions here as a means of deceleration. It preserves roughness, chipping, and the trace of destruction, but translates them into another plane—a more delicate, contemplative, and artistic one. Asphalt loses its heaviness and becomes a base for a living plant, and the stand ceases to be merely a utilitarian object, instead participating in the composition on par with the flower.
The project includes two sets—one in black and one in white—along with a separate bowl for kenzan. The contrast between black and white emphasizes the duality of the material: between rough and fragile, urban and interior, decayed and reassembled. Each set consists of three elements that can be combined and rearranged, thereby altering the character of the composition.
«Germinates» speaks to the ability of life to appear where it seems there was no room left for it. But instead of a direct depiction of struggle, the project proposes a more subtle gesture: to examine this process as an art form, as a pause, as an opportunity for the form and the plant to meet.
