White biscuit porcelain, coloured slip, and glaze
Edition of 2

Fragment(s), the Bottle Edition explores the ideas of renewal and reinvention. This series of Fragment(s) presents itself in the form of porcelain bottles – all unique yet similar.

The shapes chronicle the history, breakage and decay of distressed ceramic production moulds Julie & Jesse collected at an abandoned bottle production facility in Jingtao Cichang, an old factory area of Jingdezhen, city known as the Chinese capital of porcelain.

The duo have cast new pieces from these old moulds to reveal the beauty and poetics in their physical deterioration, to celebrate what would otherwise be discarded. With each cast produced, the bottles bear less of a resemblance to their original appearance as the moulds continue to erode and break down. The shapes transform and evolve into new ones whilst retaining an archetypal half as Julie & Jesse carefully and intentionally keep 50% of the mould intact as a tribute to what the forms used to look like.

“Our making process perpetuates and elaborates the designs the factory was producing – it gives new life to the moulds, turning flaws into a desirable design and the manufacturing of identical pieces into the production of individual ones.“

In each piece Julie & Jesse have also singled out a fragment or two of the broken moulds, which have been given a colour that accentuates the parts of the shape that have changed over the course of making the work. The colours, speak to the history of ceramic production Jingdezhen is famous for.