Julie & Jesse is an established art/design power duo based in Hong Kong. Latitude 22N , their collaborative studio , is where they experiment ceramic investigating through all its possible – yet impossible – dimensions.
Fragment(s) is an exploration to capture the limits and the relationships between molding techniques, kaolin, firing and colors. This limited edition of porcelain vases captures the break and decay of a mold to reveal the beauty in deterioration and create a memory of what would otherwise be discarded.
This special library of 72 porcelain bottles has been specially made for COS and the launch of their pop-up store on Queen’ s Road Central, Hong Kong.
‘All unique yet similar. The seemingly deconstructed shapes chronicle the history, breakage and decay of six distressed ceramic production moulds we found and collected at an abandoned bottle production facility in Jingtao Cichang, an old factory area of Jingdezhen, known as the Chinese capital of porcelain. In each piece we’ve singled out a fragment or two of the broken moulds which have been given a colour that accentuates the parts of the shape that have changed over the course of making the installation. The colours, taken straight from the COS collection, speak to the history of ceramic production Jingdezhen is famous for – blue and white and celadon.’
Located in the Jiangxi province and known as the porcelain city of China, Jingdezhen has a history of over 2000 years in porcelain making.
Julie and Jesse have been working there for over eight years during which they have established a production studio and developed several porcelain collections for their own brand, for private clients and for special commissions. During the years spent in Jingdezhen Julie and Jesse have made a unique research based on the ceramic history and practices of the city in discussing and working hand in hand with local craftsmen and mass production factories. They have accumulated knowledge of a large range of specifics and studied the standard typologies and forms produced historically and presently in the city as well as the unique qualities of the local kaolin and its firing processes. Julie and Jesse’s investigation of Jingdezhen also lead them around the city where the landscape is undeniably shaped by the ceramic industry with mountains of remains composed mainly of broken molds and porcelain pieces.
