Arts Thread

The Other Earth is a fictional world constructed through experimental ceramic ‘artefacts’, museum-style exhibits, and fabricated archive material. Reimagining archaeological and museological systems as a generative creative framework for storytelling, the materials, processes, and ‘artefacts’ are all active participants in their own invention. Every piece of ceramic in the Collection is made from the same buff stoneware clay; to make the ‘artefacts’ unique, a selection of glaze ingredients and other additives are mixed in to each batch of clay, determined by the analogue ‘Random Clay Generator’. When fired, these additives react in unpredictable ways, resulting in an array of surfaces, textures, and colours that are only discovered upon opening the kiln. The relationships that emerge between ‘artefacts’ due to these unexpected qualities begin, in turn, to generate the Other Earth and its history. The Other Earth Collection (OEC) is an iterative and continuous fictive museum project. While the 100+ ceramic ‘artefacts’ are the basis of the Collection, the curation and design of its exhibits and archive material are almost as crucial. Treating the museum as a creative medium, instead of a mode of display, the narratives – both implicit and explicit – that are constructed in museum spaces are called into question. The OEC provokes its audience to engage imaginatively, rather than passively, with these conventions, raising questions about truth, authority, and interpretation.