Obvara – ceramic urns

Details of the project

Title of work

Obvara – ceramic urns

Studio

Contextual Design Studio

Head of the studio

prof. dr hab.
Jerzy Porębski

Technique

design documentation and prototypes

Dimensions

Description

The design is an experiment and exploration of the obvara technique. It is a ceramic baking method where a vessel taken out of an oven is immersed in a fermented solution and then cooled down in clean water. Obvara was used by Baltic peoples (territories of present-day Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus and partly Russia) in the 12th century, when the glazing method had not been known yet. Searching in history and Baltic mythology, I arrived at the topic of urns. This resulted in two completely different designs – an animal ash urn and a human ash urn. As a part of my degree piece, I built a so-called raku kiln which is necessary in the obvara process.