The division between humans and non-human things has played a crucial role in perpetuating the climate crisis. A paradigm shift is required so that the complexity and interconnectedness of everything can be understood and valued. In his thesis, Subtle Worlds: Exploring Relational Ecology with Clay, Emerson Jeffery, a undergraduate student here at the University of Vermont, explores how art can be used as a tool to transgress these boundaries of separation and explore the relationships amongst humans and the environment. Emerson uses ceramics to illustrate the intra-action between clay, kilns, artists, audiences, tradition, and tools, as it is representative of the intricateness of ecology.
“By sitting with and validating more complex frameworks for understanding and relating to the worlds we exist in, it becomes possible to imagine a world in which vast choirs of influencing forces become more clear, allowing us to nurture an acceptance of the immense diversity of human, non-human, and non-living kin, prioritizing respect, curiosity, and reciprocality” - Emerson Jeffery
Emerson is currently a senior in the College of Arts and Science and the Honors College, double majoring in Environmental Studies and Studio Art. After reading All Art is Ecological by Timothy Morton, Emerson realized that he could centralize his thesis on both the subjects of ceramics and ecology. Concepts such as dark ecology, the construction of nature, and the inseparable relationship between humans and the environment were introduced all focusing on the interconnectivity between animals, plants, humans, non-living things and nature resources.
Something referred to as the “mesh”. By demonstrating how ceramics is a collaborative process between humans and nonhuman things, Emerson was able to draw correlation to ecology.
Ceramic art is born through a combination of clay, tools, the kiln, tradition, the ceramicist, and the audience. Tradition in the art of ceramics played a central role in Emersons collection, as all ceramic pieces serve as artifacts of culture, heritage and technique. A sense of personal tradition is presented in a vase created by his grandmother, a life-long artist. The history of clay is also integral to his work, as it touches on the greater theme of ceramics as a hyperobject. As like ecology, it “stretches far beyond the limited scope of human time.” - Jeffery.
Emersons aim was to challenge his audience's conception of an object by giving the ceramic pieces agency and life that demonstrates connections. Emerson created a fully set dinner table consisting of 32 pieces, with eight differential table settings (including a plate, a bowl, and cup), and eight centerpieces. The eight table settings were inspired by one of the eight seasons of the year that corresponded to the Pagan Wheel of the Year and The Later Heaven Sequence of I Ching’. The collection was placed on a checkered table, with each object sitting on a separate square like a board game, to represent each object as a separate piece a part of a broader connected concept, similar to “the mesh” (Figure 1 and 2). The board game-like feature also implies that his audience could interact with his artwork rather than it being a separate entity and inanimate. This relates back to his central notion that division in ecology is harmful and that these boundaries need to be dismantled.
Over the course of five months Emerson worked on this creative process, encompassing more than a hundred and fifty pieces. His artwork is absolutely beautiful and highlights intra-active relationships in ceramics, drawing a bigger picture to relations within ecology, and the interconnectedness of everything as a whole. Emerson ended this project with a great appreciation for the complexity of life and for interdisciplinary studies.
“One of the major reasons why I decided to allow my project to flow between a wide range of disciplines is because that’s how my own thoughts and interests move. I’m terrified by the fact that interdisciplinary studies – and lives – are so often repressed or even rejected in society. This project affirmed my belief that deep meaning can be (must be, one could argue) derived from the connections and intersections between many modes of inquiry and being.” - Emerson Jeffery