Monument or Pagoda

The piece, Monument or Pagoda, was created for craftsmen during the International Contemporary Ceramics Biennale in 2019, as a tribute to their hard work, the results of which contribute to our everyday life in a remarkable way.

The artist, along with the local community, built a monument on the site of a clay roof tile factory in the Jatiwangi area–one of 24 still in operation, although not long ago, there were 250 of them there. The monument is made up of over one thousand tiles joined together with blue mortar. Each tile bears the mark of the hand that made it. Each has passed through the hands of craftsmen hundreds of times.

This raises questions about the objects in our immediate surroundings. How few of them have had such an individual touch today, and how many are devoid of history, being flat, plain, impersonal? How different are these uniform objects from those made by craftsmen? How rare are the objects in our everyday life that bear the trace of handiwork?

​

The piece stands in Madalenka, Java, Indonesia since 2019