Her past projects include a deep dive into Stoke-on-Trent in the United Kingdom, which was a center for pottery and ceramics making from the 1700s until the economy crashed 15 years ago. Corinne studied its history, interviewed potters from the city, and created clay structures inspired by her findings.
“People are often involved in moments of history that they consider quite banal, but when they tell you those stories, you realize that they’re quite important,” she said. “That’s what I’m always inspired by — listening to someone being quite aware that maybe if they hadn’t told me that, maybe no one would ever know about that thing that happened and that place that used to be.”
Here at TUMO Studios, Corinne led an atelier exploring ancient vessel making techniques for contemporary design. Her students retraced ways in which vessels, anything that can hold liquid, were created thousands of years before the invention of the potter’s wheel. With local Tonir making as a case study, they discovered how ancient processes are still being used today. Using only clay, their hands and simple tools, they drew on those techniques to create their own pieces.
Her message to students was two-fold — technically, getting the basics of construction right, and conceptually, understanding how intimate our relationships are with objects that we use every day.