Permanent collection
Part of the show Investigating a footprint
Curated by Wendy Gers and Lab air
November 2025 - ongoing
The history of asbestos is woven through a complex web involving its uses in architecture, within building pipes and insulation, and the textile industry. Given its extraordinary material properties, asbestos was applied in countless ways, from pipes to fire-resistant garments and cords.
Cup of the Afterlife embodies a selection of glaze finishes developed over the past year for the show, three years of research in collaboration with the research centre AC Minerals, which treats asbestos-cement from local buildings in the Netherlands into a safe by-product. The development process of the glaze started during the Tech fellowship in 2022 in close collaboration with Marianne Peijnenburg, manager and specialist of the workshop at Rijskakademie van beeldende kunsten.
In dialogue with the complex history of the base material for the glaze, the project sees the finishes applied to a reinterpretation of an Etruscan goblet, realised in collaboration with Etruscan replicas expert and potter Andrea Desimoni.
The material research is applied whilst revisiting a historically and culturally significant form from Marche, the designer’s native region in Italy. The piece is inspired by archaeological vessels such as kantharoi and skyphoi, medium-sized ceramics serving as daily and funerary vessels, and to accompany the dead into their new dimension.
Within the focus of the exhibition on sustainability and on the mug as an entry point?, ?The vessel envisions ceramics made to last after death, highlighting their durability, while tying together the historical and industrial background of their composition. Asbestos was once used in antiquity to preserve fire in temples, symbolically keeping the divine flame alive, and later became known for its lethal presence in modern industry. The glaze process becomes a vehicle for storytelling about elemental transformation, circularity, and embedded history.
Cup of the Afterlife embodies a selection of glaze finishes developed over the past year for the show, three years of research in collaboration with the research centre AC Minerals, which treats asbestos-cement from local buildings in the Netherlands into a safe by-product. The development process of the glaze started during the Tech fellowship in 2022 in close collaboration with Marianne Peijnenburg, manager and specialist of the workshop at Rijskakademie van beeldende kunsten.
In dialogue with the complex history of the base material for the glaze, the project sees the finishes applied to a reinterpretation of an Etruscan goblet, realised in collaboration with Etruscan replicas expert and potter Andrea Desimoni.
The material research is applied whilst revisiting a historically and culturally significant form from Marche, the designer’s native region in Italy. The piece is inspired by archaeological vessels such as kantharoi and skyphoi, medium-sized ceramics serving as daily and funerary vessels, and to accompany the dead into their new dimension.
Within the focus of the exhibition on sustainability and on the mug as an entry point?, ?The vessel envisions ceramics made to last after death, highlighting their durability, while tying together the historical and industrial background of their composition. Asbestos was once used in antiquity to preserve fire in temples, symbolically keeping the divine flame alive, and later became known for its lethal presence in modern industry. The glaze process becomes a vehicle for storytelling about elemental transformation, circularity, and embedded history.