Objects of Imagination. Contemporary Arab Ceramics

As an initiative by the Kinda Foundation for Contemporary Arab Art, Objects of Imagination is a unique collaboration of nearly forty artists from across the Arab World, in which both traditional and innovative techniques were used to create a body of ceramic artworks.
Over the course of nine months, the Kinda Foundation invited a group of Arab artists to a dedicated ceramic workshop in Amman, Jordan, supervised by Delair Saad Shaker and Waleed R. Qaisi. The artists each created four artworks in a variety of techniques, often pushing their practice beyond traditional painting.
Using the same base of a large earthenware plate, 52 cm in diameter, the techniques range from drawing with oxides and painting with underglaze to carving, relief and sculpture. Each plate was glazed and fired at a temperature of 1020°C. Throughout the project, the creative process was fully documented for the Kinda Foundation archive. Although originally conceived as a revival of functional Arab ceramic tradition, the results of this experiment are startlingly diverse, despite many of the artists’ lack of experience in making ceramics. Without practical restrictions, the creative freedom that they enjoyed was further enhanced by the collective experience, which clearly demonstrates the impressive scope of unlimited artistic imagination in these works. • Objects of Imagination, sponsored by Kinda Foundation, invites reflection on the interplay of form, material exploration, and artistic lineage.
This collective re-envisioning of an everyday object may be situated in a wider history of artistic experimentation with ancient and Islamic art forms in ceramic and other craft-based media.
As an aesthetic form and functional vessel, the plate carries immense weight in Islamic and modern art history and served as a common point of reference and inspiration for artists with diverse practices, aesthetic concerns, and thematic interests.