Obscured records — Littoral Material Typologies

Obscured recordsp; Invisible landscapes, unacknowledged testimonies

This project explores the fragile traces of marine life,
time, and memory, translating what has been erased, overlooked,
or forgotten. In this DDW, transforms scientific and archaeological methods into sensory forms, using rocks, fish bones, and fish skins collected from the North Sea and Zandmotor near The Hague, revealing the narratives embedded in these materials, the silent record of the sea.

Color Record 01 : Fermented Time of North Sea

The Zandmotor is an artificial coast made by pumping sand from the North Sea seabed. In the process, rocks, iron oxides, and industrial slag surfaced—bringing time from the Ice Age (Dogger Bank) to today. The artist collected and studied them, then turned them into clay and glaze. As fragments of hidden terrain gather on the vessel’s skin and in its hollow, time finds a shape.

The work adopts the Moon Jar. Its round body evokes the moon and its cycle—the source of the name. In Korea it is a vessel for storage and fermentation, where nature’s time meets human culture.

Here the jar is both a surface that reveals the color, texture of rocks and a void that holds time. With twelve jars glazed by iron oxides from North Sea strata, the work layers the lunar cycle, human practice, and geologic deep time.

Color Record 02: Blue Bone

“Blue Bone” was born of serendipity: fish bones turned blue under high firing. Comparing bones by region, species, and body size revealed subtle shifts in tone and intensity. The cause is likely heavy metals accumulated in the bone—copper, iron, manganese—and is thought to be linked to marine pollution, habitat differences, and metal-rich aquaculture feed: marks of the Anthropocene.

Invisible in daily life, these accumulations become legible after specific thermal treatment. The artist refines bones into ash, adds it to clay and glazes, and tunes firing curves so phosphates and trace metals foster crystal growth and shift color.

The blue is not decoration but a record moving from inside matter to the surface. The exhibition presents the flow from bone to ash to clay/glaze, samples before/after firing, test tiles, and finished objects.