2017

The brightly coloured hodge-podge of the vessels contained in Teapot Menagerie not only represents the formal challenge of creating these works through the medium of 3D printing, it also interrogates the interplay between function and aesthetics.

Teapot Menagerie presents a number of vessels that vary in their functionality - despite their industrial construction, the objects push their traditional templates away from functionality, and closer to a purely aesthetic ornamental object.

Teapot Menagerie‘s occupation of the space between function and beauty hints at Alterfact’s continuing investigation of the medium through which these vessels were made. For the studio, 3D printing with clay remains somewhere at the intersection of handmade and industrial processes. It follows that these teapots, brought to life through this medium, refuse to be relegated to the categories of either ‘functional design’ or ‘purely aesthetic object’. They ask how functional an object built for function needs to be, or if it can occupy this liminal space between design and art.

Teapot Menagerie is a series created in response to the exhibition DesignWork1# at Sophie Gannon Gallery. The series was exhibited at the gallery as part of Melbourne Design Week 2017. They are in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria.

Explore the gallery below to see all the pieces from the exhibition.