Bodily Vessels

This work explores the intersection between the process of death and the human body through a contemporary reinterpretation of the funerary urn. Rooted in the pottery tradition, it draws on the historical use of urns and classical vessel forms while engaging with contemporary artists who challenge these conventional pottery forms by exploring the body as vessel. 

The urn echoes the human figure through its foot, belly, shoulder, neck, and lip, functioning as both an object and a metaphor for the body. It is reimagined not only as a container for human remains, but as a form that embodies the corporeal processes of death, decay, and transformation. 

Wheel-thrown in two sections and joined into a single form, with trimmings applied using slip, the urn’s reconstructed surface reflects how memory preserves traces of the self beyond the physical body. A manganese oxide wash combined with dry glaze produces a matte, unstable surface, reinforcing associations with erosion, fragility, and decay.