PCG-022 Material Wisdom-In Dialogue with Ranti Bam

Read more about how this object finds value in rupture, pigment, touch, and the quiet strength of material.

THE OBJECT

This ring was made from ceramic and from a fragment of an earlier work. A part was separated, removed, and brought into a new form. From the beginning, the object carries a history of rupture, choice, and repositioning.

The missing edges have been repaired and adjusted, but not completely erased. The connection remains visible. It is precisely there that the tension of the object emerges: between damage and repair, between separation and reconnection.

The pink colour brings sensitivity into the image. It softens the roughness of the ceramic and refers to the small flower-like traces on the surface. The pink makes the ring more bodily, more vulnerable, and more intimate.

Through repeated sanding and polishing, the form has become smooth and pleasant to touch. During this long process, a bond developed between maker and object. The ring was not only shaped; it was slowly approached, corrected, and softened.

In this way, a personal object has emerged: a ring that does not hide rupture, but carries it as part of its meaning.

THE VALUE

Material Wisdom

This ring is connected to the value Material Wisdom: the wisdom held within material.

Material is not a neutral carrier of form here. It participates, reacts, resists, and leaves traces. The ceramic carries the history of the earlier object from which the fragment came. The repaired edges show that material does not have to be made “new” again in order to become valuable.

The pigments also play an important role. The black and blue colours can rub off. This makes the object vulnerable, but also active. The ring does not remain completely closed within itself; it releases something. This transfer of pigment can be read as a quiet, material process of mourning: colour as residue, pigment as trace, touch as transmission.

Material Wisdom means that meaning does not arise only from the idea behind the work, but from what the material itself does. It breaks, changes colour, wears down, stains, adheres, and transforms. Precisely because of this, the object becomes more honest. It shows that value is not always smooth, perfect, or controllable.

For the wearer, this value becomes tangible. The ring reminds us that damage, wear, and change can also be part of meaning. What carries traces is not less valuable; it may in fact tell us more.

IN DIALOGUE WITH RANTI BAM

This ring stands in dialogue with Ranti Bam because her work shares a related sensitivity to clay as an active, bodily, and meaning-bearing material.

In Bam’s work, clay is not a passive raw material. Her ceramic forms emerge through touch, pressure, vulnerability, and proximity. The material is not only shaped by the artist; it also seems to act back on the body and on the making process. This attitude is important for this ring: here too, ceramic is not treated as a smooth final product, but as matter with its own behaviour and history.

The dialogue lies mainly in the treatment of material. In Bam’s work, clay acquires a living presence. In this ring, ceramic receives a second life through separation, repair, pigment, sanding, and wearing. The object shows that material is not silent. It preserves traces of action and can create new traces itself.

The ring is therefore not read as an imitation of Bam, but as a related thought on a smaller scale. What Bam investigates through image and form is translated here into a value that can be worn: attention to material as a carrier of loss, change, and meaning.

WITHIN THE PROJECT POST-COLONIAL GOLD

Within Post-Colonial Gold, this ring gains meaning because it separates value from luxury, perfection, and possession.

The ring does not use polished beauty to show value. Instead, it shows fragment, rupture, repair, pigment, and touch. This connects to the core of Post-Colonial Gold: gold and value are not understood as decoration or status, but as a new value system.

In this object, value lies in what was once damaged, separated, or incomplete. The fragment is not discarded, but taken up again. The visible connection makes clear that repair is not the same as erasure. The ring allows the history of its making to remain present.

Within the project, the ring also functions as a point of access. It brings art knowledge back to the body and into everyday life. In the digital space, it can be viewed freely; in the street, it becomes wearable. In this way, the value moves between the metaverse and reality, between public accessibility and personal experience.

RESONANCE WITH THE PRESENT WORLD

This ring resonates with a time in which we are increasingly asked to handle material, history, and value with greater care.

We live in a culture in which objects are often produced, used, and replaced quickly. This ring does the opposite. It slows things down. It comes from an existing fragment, from repair, sanding, polishing, and attention. It asks for a way of looking in which damage is not immediately corrected or hidden.

The transfer of black and blue pigment is also important in this context. The object does not remain clean, neutral, or untouched. It leaves traces. This makes visible that wearing is always a relationship: between object and body, between maker and material, between loss and new meaning.

The ring therefore points to a form of art knowledge that does not have to remain inside a museum. It can be worn, shared, and read again. As an object in the public space, it becomes a subtle interface: an invitation, through image, material, and QR code, to access a value that emerges from art.

In a world that often strives for control and perfection, this ring shows something else: value can also lie in vulnerability, in traces, in what rubs off, in what cannot be fully controlled.

This ring does not ask for perfect admiration, but for attention to what material can carry, lose, and mean again.