Robert Harrison

Gimhae Arch

I was invited to Gimhae, Korea to participate in an exhibition titled Architectural Ceramics Now & New at the Gimhae ClayArch Museum in 2009. The museum is relatively new and beautifully sited on a hillside with an agricultural below in southern Korea. The dozen + artists invited included half from Korea and the other half internationals, with some who had not or did not normally work with ceramic materials. I chose to work with fired industrially produced materials; brick and densely fired, glazed ceramic electrical insulators. An ideal site was chosen on an entry/exit path of the museum.

With a great crew of staff and university ceramics students we installed a foundation and proceeded to work up the arch.  Utilizing conventionally mortared brick on the inside of the arch, we then applying layers of the ceramic insulators to the previously mortared brickwork. I refer to this construction method as the organized chaos technique I developed over the years of building site specific architectural installations. The heavily textured surface achieved with the ceramic insulators occurs intuitively, working from a palette of various sizes and shapes within arms reach. This is a permanent installation at the Gimhae ClayArch Museum.