Karen Kitani Harsbo (1963, Japan) lives in Denmark. She studied ceramics and glass at Danish Design School, 1982-87. She works as an associate professor at Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art, Copenhagen
The project at the Spode Works has expanded my curiosity for the history of porcelain.
From how porcelain was invented in China and later laboriously transported via the Silk Route to Europe. How alchemists in Europe experimented to find the formula, and how it during the Enlightenment Age, eg the Lunar Society, became a major industry with exports to the whole world. And how production once again has gone back to the East.
It is a story that generates multiple routes and maps; - and places are connected via camel routes through the desert or container routes over the ocean. It is routes of human curiosity and knowledge.
I have been interested in the people who have been part of these places - workers in the East and the West. Those who have been a dot on the larger map and relayed their knowledge throughout history. As well as those who no longer can use their craftmanship in times of unenployment.
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