Amphorae
Melbourne Design Fair, Craft 2022
A series of hand-woven vessels created for the Craft showcase at the inagural Melbourne Design Fair, initiated by the NGV Department of Contemporary Design and Architecture and delivered in collaboration with the Melbourne Art Foundation
Hand-woven using traditional coil basketry methods, the vessels are created layer by layer, slowly amassing via a stratum of simple loops and knots. The forms of the vessels reference amphorae – two-handled vessels found in antiquities which were commonly used for tasks such as storing wine, milk, or olives. While the original amphorae were often ceramic, the materiality of these velvet vessels honours a utilitarian object at the expense of its usability. By collapsing past forms and present material, the vessels present a divergent cultural legacy for future beings to unearth from the anthropocenic strata.