Tamsin van Essen
London, United Kingdom
Medical Heirlooms
My work 'Medical Heirlooms' explores the stigma of diseases, questioning contemporary obsessions with perfection and beauty. I have been manipulating the ceramic material in a way that emulates physiological processes, deliberately encouraging 'faults', 'defects' and 'blemishes.' These features add visual and tactual interest to the vessels, and are intended to mirror the interest and individuality that can be added to a person's appearance by scars, flaws or deformities from medical conditions (their health legacy). Based on 17th -18th century apothecary jars, the forms have strong historical and medical links, as well as providing the metaphor of vessel as body: they become containers for disease, rather than holding the cure. As family heirlooms, the jars can be passed down through the generations in the same way as hereditary medical conditions.
