/ Polluted Plants to Pottery

Show at Dutch Design Week

De Fabriek – As part of (W)Aardewerk from Crafts Council
19.10.2024  – 27.10.2024

Ceramics: Glazed with polluted plants
Collaborator: De Ceuvel, Anke Wijnja
Metalwork: Marte Mei together with Otakar Zwartjes
Illustrations: Anna Trefilova
Movie Edit shown at Design Week: Amanda van Hesteren. 

We are happy to announce that Stimuleringsfonds Creative Industries is supporting this project’s continuation, experimentation and further research into 2025.

Polluted Plants to Pottery is an ongoing research project where Marte Mei uses phyto-extraction plant matter to make ceramic glazes. Marte is working on this project together with De Ceuvel, who have been using Phyto-extraction for over 10 years to clean their polluted soils. Plants absorb these metals from the soil, after which they are harvested, extracting the heavy metals from the site while also creating an ambiguous sort of “waste” in the form of plant-mass. We used the ashes of these plants as the main ingredient to produce ceramic glazes, creating tools that can be used to interact with de Ceuvel.