Memory Vessel / Pair 6

The glass vessel is a replica of a broken 19th-century Chinese porcelain vessel. Bouke de Vries reassembles a broken ceramic piece, creates its replica in glass, and places the broken porcelain pieces inside the vessel. The glass vessel is therefore a ghost of the original piece, containing its fragments, its memory.

● Type: Vessel
● Dimensions: 63.5 H x 24 Ø cm
● Material: Porcelain, glass
● Date: 2017

While studying ceramics restoration, Bouke de Vries undertook an internship at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where he restored a Roman glass cinerary urn. Years later, Bouke came up with the idea of making a glass cinerary urn for a broken vase. For his Memory Vessel series, Bouke finds great-quality ceramic vessels from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, broken but complete, reconstructs their shape and makes an exact replica in blown glass. The broken ceramic pieces are deconstructed again and placed inside the glass vessel. The glass piece acts as a ghost, a memory of the ceramic vase, as well as a receptacle for its “ashes”.

Porcelain VirtuosityExhibition