As part of my artist development for my From Soil to Cloth project, I spent one day collaborating with Ceramicist Suna Imre in her home studio in Winchester.

Suna worked in dance, specialising in improvisation, for 15 years before transitioning to working with clay. Her practice focuses on incorporating natural, local materials and fostering a connection to the earth. Her relationship to the natural world is central to her process. Working with foraged clay, she explores the cycle of making work from the earth and then returning it back.

During our collaboration we had conversations on her processes, motivation and what she is currently working on. Suna shared her skills in making moon jars, a jar resembling the full moon which originates from Korea. Sharing some foraged clay she demonstrated how to form two cups which we joined together.

In exchange, I shared how to make paper cordage with Suna. We then experimented with thread, linen, fabric and clay to create a collection of miniature objects combining ceramics and weaving.

This process really opened my mind to approaching creativity in a playful way, working with materials intuitively and without a focus on outcome. Working just with our hands and the materials without any tools allowed for a more mindful experience, which felt connected to ancestral ways of making.

Suna Imre Website

shared struggles

connection with the earth

moon jar

bird song

stones, rocks, stonehenge

ancient, anscestoral

processes, contact improvisation, poetic, cycle of work from earth back to earth

bark, smoke fired

seeds of ideas

seeing our own work and process in a different light

skill exchanges, understanding each others work