We featured one Ariane Prin design a few weeks ago. Rust was a set of trays, pots, and vases that have a patina of oxidized metal. We recently found another work of the London designer that piqued our interest. She designed a tool to drip clay across a hand-spun carousel of drinking glasses. This Ariane Prin design is a tool, but it is as visually gratifying as the works it creates.
Prin told Matter of Stuff that the project was created while she was a resident at the Design Centrum Kielce (DCK) in Poland. Four porcelain vessels drip clay over 16 plaster molds rotating underneath, creating unique small-scale runs of cups.
The work was inspired by the many water fountains Prin saw in the city. She thought of them as places of “joyful interaction” among residents. There is a darker tone underneath. The DCK building was formerly the site of an old prison, which from 1828 to 1956 was a place where many Polish fighters were tortured by water and executed. Prin states that the special-edition cups she made for DCK were all red, to symbolize the blood of the prisoners. The dripping evokes the water torture and the cups were made in front of the wall where prisoners were executed.
The Ariane Prin design is also a proof of concept. She explains:
“This project is also a new proposal in my research to design machines that allow small independent batch production of objects. The clay recipe elaborated for the cups gives a soft touch and a satin effect and requires only one firing, halving the energy typically required by the process.”
French-born Ariane Prin graduated from the Royal College of Art with an MA in design in 2011. Her work has been exhibited since 2004, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Mint Gallery and Heal’s in London, Cité de la Mode et du Design and the S. Bensimon Gallery in Paris.
What do you think of this Ariane Prin design? Let us know in the comments.
Cups from Prin’s project at DCK. Photographs courtesy of the designer.
It would be interesting to see the finished cups
Done!