Escoural-O-Novo

Lonely Planet. Escoural-O-Novo' is the third part of the triptych, in which Dutch artist Susan Kooi travels to Italy, Portugal, and Japan to work with various traditions of ceramic crafts. This last part of the triptych in which Kooi recontextualises and poetically reconstructs ceramic artefacts, exploring the material as a time machine. This publication functions as an alternative travel book for the Montomor-O-Novo region in Portugal, which has a long tradition in ceramics. After having worked with terra-cotta in Italy and with porcelain in Japan, the focus here is on the glazing process. In a kind of symbolic circle, Kooi got to glaze some terracotta works made in Italy, and make a series of new works based on what she encountered around the region. The contributions of Ana Joao Almeida, Sira Camacho, Susan Kooi, Lot Meijers and Anni Puolakka tell the background stories of these ceramics. Dutch artist Susan Kooi completed her bachelor's degree in VAV at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in 2012. Her multidisciplinary practice includes music, video, sculpture, installations, text, and fashion. Her interest in notions of (pre)history has a cheery existentialist perspective. What are the objects that lay claim to existence?