Design + Discussion | Experimental Vases Created using Snow, Gunpowder and Water Balloons

For our discussion topic this week, we’d like to highlight some unorthodox vases we’ve seen around the Internet recently and ask our readers what they thought of them.

Shaping a vase or vessel is always a process which is, in itself, as interesting as the final form. These three designers go the extra mile by incorporating beyond-the-pale techniques which create unique forms. Please look at these following works with a critical eye and let us know what you think in the comments.

Above image: Snow vases by Maxim Velčovský.

Maxim Velčovský of the Qubus studio designed a series of snow vases for the 2013 London Design Festival. Dezeen reports that these porcelain forms were molded into a vase shape from snow collected from different locations over the course of three winters then cast in plaster.

The designer calls the process “lost snow casting,” perhaps because the plaster heats up as it dries, causing the snow to melt. They’re limited editions, because the mold breaks after several casts.

The snow vases are the first of the forms showcased here to play with time during their production, because the snow melts and the mold quickly breaks. The second example we have seems to incorporate the saying “it’s better to burn out than to fade away.” “Booming Vases” by the Analogia Project and Alessio Sarri incoroporate time in their shaping, but it is within one single, explosive instant. The forms are given their distinctive shapes after gunpowder is exploded inside the vessels while they are still wet. The designers state that the vases are experiments in opposing elements: air and matter; power and fragility.

“The moment of explosion is therefore fixed in the matter. The result is a block of colored ceramic exploded, showing its intimate white texture,” the designers state.

The final series, “Elements” by Jomi Evers Solheim don’t have a temporal theme to them, but, as with “Booming Vases” they incorporate seemingly-disparate elements into their shapes. Solheim states of the porcelain forms:

“This ongoing project is an experiment in how to use the elements of air and water in a design process. Containing these elements within a balloon, the natural elasticity of latex combined with the laws of gravity makes it possible to create a wide range of individual transitory forms. Through a casting process the shapes are made into solid porcelain objects.”

So how do you feel about the experimental nature of these three projects? Which is your favorite? Let us know in the comments.

Bill Rodgers is a Contributing Editor at CFile.