10 Questions With… Ceramicist King Houndekpinkou

King Houndekpinkou Reveals His Deep Connection to the Art of Ceramics

Interior Design: Why did ceramics appeal to you?

King Houndekpinkou: I think ceramics chose me and I responded to the call. When I first encountered claywork, I was soul searching, looking for a purpose that is close to my heart. At the time, I was engaged in a career in communications. While I knew I was creative, I wanted to use my creative skills for more neat and fulfilling purposes, rather than working for companies and using that creative energy elsewhere. I’m not diminishing working for a company; it’s just that they’re not that close to my heart and who I am as a person. So while doing this soul search, I bumped into claywork. And that search led me to Japan, where I discovered ceramics.

ID: How did you begin your career as a ceramicist?

KH: My journey began in Japan in 2012. Then I came back to Paris and decided to keep on soul searching, taking some ceramics classes. At the beginning, I wasn’t really searching for a career; I just wanted to know how nature translated who I am as a person. Since clay is an element of nature that is super old and infused with all the history of humankind, I thought it was the best material to reflect and translate history because it’s so knowledgeable. It’s a huge encyclopedia. We talk about big data nowadays, but I believe clay and soil is where all the data related to human history is stored. I use it as an oracle, really. I embrace it as a way to find answers about the future for myself and for my life, and to just discover more about who I am in the world. Looking back at my career, it’s been amazing. I’m based in Paris, but most of the shows that I’ve been doing have been overseas and internationally. I’m blessed to be having an international career and blessed to know that that’s how it started.

ID: How would you describe your background?

KH: I was born in Montreuil, Paris, but I grew up in the Southern suburbs of France. When I was 19, I went to England to study public relations and communications and then started working in London, coming back to Paris every so often. I also have Beninese heritage, as my mom immigrated from Benin to France so I’m bicultural. Every year, I keep going back to Benin, and at home, I speak Fung and Mena. I understand the language and everything. It was always constantly present despite the distance.

ID: Why did you decide to choose the Japanese technique of making ceramics instead of Beniese?

KH: I think for me, it’s not necessarily about the technique, but it’s about the way of doing, especially when it comes to how you deal with the ceramics and the clay. When I went to Japan in 2012 and started training with my friends, I could sense the way they were addressing the clay and the way they were working. It was really spiritual. You could feel that their Buddhism and Shintoism beliefs were present in the way they practiced the ceramics. That echoed the voodoo cult, the animist voodoo cult of Benin, which is where I saw the similarities. So for me, it happened in a spiritual way and deeply cultural way. But all of that was emphasized through ceramics.

And then, I trained with Toshia Kishibuta, who I would consider my mentor, and he’s based in Vizan. While I was training with him and learning about his way of doing ceramics, he taught me so many values and how to be a man. I feel like he’s my father in the ceramics world. Inevitably, I’m going to keep using all the things that he taught me in my life because, ceramically speaking, that’s how I was born. And this is the guy that raised me. So I’ve got pieces of him that I’m still using today.

ID: Mythicism and spirituality is a strong theme in your work. Why is that important to highlight?

KH: It truly is a way of showing the spiritual depth of the material. The ceramics of Benin and West Africa, in general, show that so well and in a way that it speaks to me. When you see all the spikes on my work, these were all inspired from ritual ceramics from West Africa, but used differently. For me, this represents the sacred way of considering clay, ceramics and the the soul that inhabits those ceramics. The synthesis of both these worlds, from the things that I’ve learned from Japan and the things that I’ve learned from Benin, is sacred. Myths are made out of stories and I am telling the stories of now with the ceramics that I use. Because what I’m also trying to do is open a cultural route in the field of ceramics between Benin and Japan. It’s something that has never been done before. If I accumulate enough layers, I can make sure that it’s something that stays in the history of ceramics.

ID: Your work possesses this incredible shape and comes with bright vibrant colors; why are you so drawn to them?

KH: There’s a huge visceral aspect in my work. I mean, the process of making is already tactile, so my work reflects that. I’m mainly doing ceramics to understand more about myself and about the world, and this process is meditative as I put all the layers together. It’s almost like I’m taking out my own matter, my own flesh, and putting it onto the piece. When it comes to color and texture, the texture creates life and makes the color more vibrant. The texture is important as it is the mark of my personality and my soul. The shapes of the vessels reflect something we all know, and we take for granted because we see it every day. But it’s so ingrained in our environment that we don’t see it anymore. And that’s also an interesting shape to show how much history it carries.

ID: What inspired your new exhibition “Six Prayers” at the Southern guild gallery?

KH: Well, I did a residency at Southern Guild, where I made these works. And so before each firing, I prayed to the Kiln God that the firing goes well. Because there are six pieces, six pieces equals to six firings. And then there’s the fact that when I throw a piece, I enter a meditative state that is intense and visceral—and so full of intention. It’s charged with a lot of energy. And for me, a prayer is that feeling. It’s an intentional moment where you dedicate time to say something or to be thankful, but also to ask a higher being things. And again, we go back to what clay was first used for 30,000 years ago. It was all very spiritual and intentional. With this exhibition, it goes back full circle with the aspect of prayer, the aspect of intention, and being intentional in telling those stories. And here, there are six prayers because there are six intentions.

ID: What was the process of creating “Six Prayers”?

KH: It took me two months to create these works. At that time, the idea was to work at scale—to create a collection consisting of my signature pieces, but to make them on a larger scale.

ID: Would you say your work explores biomimicry concepts and are you open to the object interpretation of your work by viewers?

KH: No, not necessarily. I think my aim is to make sure the pieces are living and breathing, whatever shape they are. If you feel some life in them, then I’ve done my job well. If you are able to connect with them with your own imagination, and it touches your heart in a way that it makes you remember your childhood, it’s a great thing for me. I think it’s important because that’s how people communicate and exchange ideas. For myself, I have to be open to criticism as well. Who am I to say that people should not see my work in a certain way? You always see things in your own perspective, which is based on your background and cultural heritage. But luckily, throughout my career—and being able to show on all five continents—I’ve always had positive feedback. In that, I’d say that there’s something universal in the work that people can feel.

ID Are you exploring other material forms?

KH: Oh yes! I am collaborating with other artisans and designers to create a line of usable artworks. I am always open to collaborate and create new things that are a translation of my current work.

10 Questions With… Sculptor Adam Birch

How Sculptor Adam Birch Is Moved By Texture + Nature

Interior Design: What shaped your career as a sculptor?

Adam Birch: When I was apprenticing as an arborist, a perfectly symmetrical fork caught my attention while pruning some trees one day. I kept it for a few years, and slowly began chiseling away at it with hand tools. That was my first tree fork sculpture, which was followed by others that I exhibited locally. Trevyn and Julian McGowan [co-founders of Southern Guild] had seen some of my work and came to visit me in my workshop in the town of Swellendam—this ended in them commissioning me to make some pieces for Anthropologie in London. They also invited me to make some works for a group exhibition of timber sculpture and collectible furniture titled “Wood Work,” at their first gallery in Woodstock, Cape Town in 2016.

ID: Describe your educational and family background and how that shaped your career.

AB: I grew up surrounded by nature—my dad managed a farm in the Cape Winelands and we had a lot of freedom as kids to immerse ourselves in the wild outdoors. At boarding school, I used to climb trees so that I could smoke—I was quite naughty as a kid—because no one ever looked up. It was the perfect place to evade the teachers’ notice. After high school, I studied fine art at the University of Stellenbosch majoring in applied graphics and photography, but I was always envious of the sculpture students, and I was drawn to the three-dimensional medium from early on. I was privileged to learn from so many excellent professors who were practicing artists themselves and who emphasized the importance of doing things over and over again to improve and to refine my technique. The same thing applies to working with wood—I’m constantly pushing the possibilities of what the timber can cope with. In the beginning, my work was more determined by the tree’s existing lines and inherent shape, but over the years I’ve been able to flex my skills and find new ways of working with the grain to find more sculptural forms.

ID: You were an arborist and forester for decades. How did you begin and what was work like as an arborist?

AB: Just after I graduated from university, I saw an ad for a tree climber and thought that would be a good way to earn some money. When I started my apprenticeship, I was told by my boss that I wouldn’t last six months—he made me drag and load branches for the first month—so I lasted seven, just to prove him wrong and then quit! I worked at a woodworking studio in Stellenbosch afterwards, designing furniture and various functional fittings. I started my own tree-felling company a couple years later. Honestly, it was terrifying initially—you are working with dangerous tools and at such great heights. You get used to it over time though; in fact, I would say I get an adrenaline rush from it now.

ID: What inspired your new exhibition at the Southern Guild?

AB: With this body of work, I was primarily concerned with pushing the boundaries of what the timber can do and handle. I’m continuing to explore some of the same shapes while working harder to tease out more flamboyant and expressive forms. Swan, for instance, is a kind of elongated love-seat, formed by scooping out two sections of a continuous piece of wood, while keeping a sort of backrest between them right at the point where the tree splits into two. I have played with the piece’s profile to take into consideration the full 360-degree experience—from one angle it looks like an elegant, slightly upturned slipper; from the other side, it’s all swirling shapes that seem to wrap around the human figure. The movement is echoed by the incredible marbled patterns of the grain in this piece of wood.

ID: Does “Like Something Almost Being Said” has a way to explain the language of trees and how we could communicate our feelings to them?

AB: I sometimes find myself wanting to say sorry to a tree before cutting it down, even though chances are that it is already dead. I feel overwhelming respect for these giants, especially during the process of carving the felled tree into smaller pieces. Timber is the only material that can withstand the forces it has to endure: snow, wind, rain. If you had to cast a tree in another material—metal or plastic—nothing could withstand the force it endures with the same elegance and lightness. The leaves on a large gum tree can collectively weigh up to a tonne just on their own. I also feel incredible humility and wonder: no two pieces of wood are ever the same. Each piece has the potential to teach a new lesson. You think you’re going to do one thing, but the wood decides something else.

ID: Your work plays with variant forms, most especially curves that could be a joint of pairs. Do the shapes and forms represent animals, or is it for an aesthetic purpose?

AB: I’m not imagining animals or any particularly figurative shapes when I’m carving the wood. If anything, the shapes remind me of bones and driftwood that wash up on the ocean shore. I like the gentle shapes and smooth texture of things worn away over time, like the rope on a ship mast, oars on the gunnels of a boat, or two branches that rub against each other. When choosing my shapes, I have to take functionality into account as well, of course. The piece can’t fall over, which is why I often use a three-footed design. People need to sit on them. Kids need to climb on them.

ID: In terms of materials, how do you determine whether a wood is ready to be used, and are you open to exploring with other materials aside from woods, such as clay, paper or metals?

AB: I have incorporated copper before and am keen to try concrete or terrazzo, but wood is still the primary material. I let the wood stand for a couple of years—for as long as it can. Often you think a piece is dry, but it turns out not to be. You have no guarantees when you start working with it; you just hope for the best. I’m a bit of a hoarder when it comes to wood. I have a few pieces stashed here, there and everywhere, but mostly at my outdoor workshop.

ID: As an arborist, you must care deeply about trees. Are you concerned about cutting down trees to also create works?

AB: I never cut a tree down to make a sculpture. As an arborist, I only fell alien trees or trees that are diseased or already dead. I think I’m doing my bit by removing the alien species. For example, gum trees in South Africa are very invasive and in Cape Town in particular, they pose environmental threats, because they are highly combustible and remove a lot of water from the water table.

ID: What is it like working in your open-air Cape Town workshop, and what was your routine like creating the pieces that are currently being exhibited?

AB: I work on three or four pieces concurrently, but I’m not a routine kind of guy—my work feels a lot like chaos management. Working conditions are determined by the weather, but I roll with it and it’s mostly great fun. I have anywhere between four and nine people who work with me, and there is constant activity and noise. At any one time, there are guys chopping firewood, cleaning machines, sharpening blades, using chainsaws, and moving the pieces around depending on the sun and wind. Conditions are noisy and dusty.

ID: How do you want viewers to interpret your works and exhibitions? 

AB: People can make their own minds up and find their own way of interacting with and using the pieces. What makes me very happy is how kids respond when seeing my work—they immediately start climbing all over it, swinging, jumping, and playing. It’s a joy to see.

Zanele Muholi’s Sculptures Shed Light on Human Rights Issues

When it comes to South African artist Zanele Muholi’s body of work, each project seems to stand alone, creating a ripple of impact. In their latest self-titled exhibition, on view through August 17 at the Southern Guild in Cape Town, the visual activist introduces a mixed media project combining photography and sculpture. Through their work, Muholi confronts ongoing social worries including conversations surrounding taboos of female genitalia and its association with sexual pleasure; the overwhelming femicide in South Africa; LGBTQIA+ stigmatization; as well as their own struggle with uterine fibroids and religion.

The exhibition also reflects Muholi’s own evolution—acting as a prologue for new matters of self-expression and a window into the way they want the events happening around them to be portrayed. It’s this portrayal that reels viewers as they walk into the Southern Guild, curious of the place Muholi has found themselves, and how that’s reflected in the work. Most pieces on display are rebirthed from Muholi’s past projects, like the photographs, which are an extension of the Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail the Dark Lioness) series.

Adding complexity, the semantics exhibited are unconventional—one sculpture depicts Muholi as the Virgin Mary, sheathed in robes, their hands clasped in prayer. The exhibition’s power also lies in the consciousness of the photographs and in the Muholi’s lingering ode: “The uterus is the rite of passage that is common to all of us regardless of race, class, gender. It is a common space, it is like water—water is water, blood is blood, the womb is the womb, birth is birth. You are born from someone, you come from that passage.” Through “Zanele Muholi,” the artist manages to create their own passage; one that sparks bold explorations.