ten green bottles

Through destruction of work, ‘ten green bottles’  challenges our relationship with possession, loss, and creativity. If we accept inevitable loss and make peace with letting something go, how does our relationship with it change? What are we freed up to do? And what changes in our feelings towards it in the time we do have?

The volatile nature of making, glazing and firing ceramics urges you to let go of the outcome and surrender to the process. It becomes the act of making for the sake of making, rather than making for the sake of having.

Instead of grief at its destruction, the work inspired a sense of possibility and of the potential for new work to fill the space left behind.

This work received a ‘very special mention’ at Miranda July’s International Covid Art Festival 2020. 

audio piece

One of the bottles exhibited is now somewhere in the Pacific Ocean after becoming a pivotal part of processing childhood grief. The story of this bottle is documented in an audio art piece, produced by BBC Radio Three Producer Katie Callin.

This piece was shortlisted for the HearSay International Audio Festival Create Award 2021.

public participation

As part of exhibiting ten green bottles, a separate set of ten green bottles were created to be taken by members of the public, on the condition that they had to destroy them and document the act through photographic or video evidence. The work sought to encourage participants to actively engage with themes of loss and the creative power of making for the sake of making.

This is a compilation of the videos that were received.