WHY DO EUROPEANS PUT PLATES ON THEIR WALL

A collaboration between Irene Nordli and Mingshu Li

Irene Nordli and Mingshu Li have worked together for a year. Mingshu Li has been Irene's assistant through the Norwegian Arts Council's artist assistant arrangement and in that connection, the two artists decided to create a collaboration project uniting the two artistries. The aim is to show that working with art is a good way to understand each other, even though they come from different "worlds" and generations - one established and the other newly graduated.

The intention of this project is to create a series of porcelain plates. The artists have bought, found, and received several plates in different shapes and materials. They used the plates as models to make plaster molds, to press mold new porcelain plates and to create their own variations of them. The rule has been that they both must work on the same plate, to see what happens and for the artist's ego to be challenged.

The motifs are porcelain decals and tissue papers that Irene has brought home from China combined with shapes from Irene's workshop. The plates have been glazed and fired several times and if the porcelain has cracked, they glued the pieces back together.

The title refers to the two artists’ different traditions about how they relate to a dish or a plate. In a western cultural context, the porcelain plate could be seen as so beautiful and precious that people hung it on their walls. The tradition of Christmas plates and souvenir plates illustrates this. This tradition does not exist in China. The porcelain is from China, the dishes and plates in the home are intended for everyday use and not to decorate the wall.

The project is supported by Arts Council Norway.