Dir/DP/Edit: Philipp Fuchs

Over the course of the last year, filmmaker Philipp Fuchs accompanied me in my studio and followed the quiet rhythm of my daily work and my dialogue with porcelain. His goal was to create a personal portrait of the challenges, patience and philosophy of ceramic creation.

As a student of master ceramist Mathies Schwarze, I obtained my federal vocational qualification as a ceramist at the School of Design in Bern/Biel in 2018. 

Further training followed at the Forest Row School of Ceramics in East Sussex (UK) in 2019 and with Kwak Kyung Tae in Icheon (South Korea) in 2024. My stays in England and South Korea were a great inspiration. 

The distinctive swirls, created naturally by the centrifugal forces of the wheel, pay homage to the millennia-old tradition of pottery and make each of my pieces unique. The complex process of gas firing in an oxygen-reduced atmosphere requires a great deal of composure, as the results cannot be fully controlled.  

For me, this is what makes my profession as a ceramist so appealing and allows me to lose myself completely in my work.

My porcelain collections follow a clear, meaningful cycle that aims to ensure that the raw
material is fully utilised. The process of creating a white porcelain piece produces a lot of waste. I recycle this waste by mixing it with clay or oxides. This is how the SPOT collection was created and how black porcelain is made. It is a complex, time-consuming process, but it also illustrates that everything is in flux and that the end can also be the beginning.

I use both oxidising and reducing firing techniques. These two processes differ significantly in their complexity. Oxidising firing in an electric kiln is an automated process, while reducing firing in a gas kiln involves a great deal of manual work and experience in controlling the firing curve. To achieve the best possible results, I don't stand alone at the kiln, but fire together with ceramicist Bregitta Fölmli in the meditative surroundings of the municipality of Sattel in the canton of Schwyz. Her high sensitivity to the firing process, coupled with my systematic approach and our shared instinctive feel for the work, lead to good results.