Shahar Livne
Conceptual Material Design
Shahar Livne -Conceptual Material Designer and Researcher
Stories of Arita Dutch Design Week 2025
​Geological Mystery
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This tableware is drawn in a traditional Arita porcelain style but takes its inspiration from an unexpected source: the patterns found in kaolin rocks from Amakusa Island, Japan. Since the closure of the Izumiyama quarry, Arita porcelain makers have relied on this new clay source. Unlike the highly prized Izumiyama kaolin, Amakusa kaolin is considered of lesser quality, but its natural formations display intricate, mysterious patterns that even geologists cannot fully explain yet.
By translating these geological designs onto the plates, the designer rediscovers and celebrates the hidden beauty of the material. The works reimagine imperfections as opportunities, turning what signals lesser quality into stunning surface patterns that merge tradition, observation, and the surprising artistry of nature itself.
Izumiyama - a geological wonder
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This teacup takes its inspiration from the Izumiyama quarry, where the kaolin essential for Arita porcelain is found. Kaolin forms over millions of years through a slow geological process: feldspar-rich rocks break down under heat, water, and chemical reactions, leaving behind the pure, fine clay that gives porcelain its whiteness and malleability.
By simulating the quarry’s natural formation on the cup, the designer evokes the patient forces of nature that shaped this material. The existence of Arita and its centuries-long porcelain tradition depends entirely on this place, making every sip from the cup a connection to the land, the clay, and the deep history of craft itself.
Relics of a place​
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“These 3D-printed sculptural objects, made from recycled Japanese porcelain granulets, transform archival data from the Arita Potters Association into tangible form. Each piece acts as a kind of code—a visual record, a language—that maps sales, the potters still working in the industry, and the changing markets over the last 30 years.
The sculptures reveal more than numbers: they show how traditional Japanese tableware compares to Western-style ceramics in production, and even include industrial objects like electric insulators, reflecting the town’s diverse production.
By turning this data into porcelain, the works both preserve and visualise Arita’s heritage, capturing the struggles, uncertainty, and resilience of a craft facing generational change, urban migration, and evolving markets.”
Beyond numbers, the works reveal the struggles of a craft in decline. As older potters retire and younger generations leave for cities, production slows and markets shrink. These objects preserve and interpret Arita’s heritage, making visible both its resilience and the uncertainty of its future.”
Melting Pots
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These three tea pots were inspired by the designer’s visit to Arita, the birthplace of Japanese porcelain. In the workshops, craftsmen often use the very objects they create to contain materials—such as latex tinted with a vivid synthetic pink ink. As the latex is applied and removed, it drips, accumulates, and reshapes the surfaces of these vessels, producing unexpected layers and textures that contrast with the precision of traditional porcelain.
Rather than simply replicating these accidental effects, the designer explored the transformation itself—how materials and techniques can disrupt convention. The resulting objects create a dialogue between heritage and modernity, where centuries-old craftsmanship encounters unintentional intervention, and beauty emerges from the layered interplay of tradition and contemporary material use.
Three Friends of Winter, prey, and Red Dots
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This porcelain vase brings together layered histories, symbols, and interventions. At its heart is the motif of the Three Friends of Winter—pine, bamboo, and plum—an image long cherished across East Asia. These resilient plants thrive in the coldest months, signifying endurance and renewal. They have been painted onto ceramics for centuries, representing not only the cycle of the seasons but also the ability to survive under harsh conditions.
Alongside them, a different and more unsettling motif: cats hunting birds. While the Three Friends symbolize harmony with nature, the predator–prey scenes capture a harsher truth. They evoke the tensions and competitions that coexist with ideals of balance, a reminder that beauty often lives beside struggle.
Over parts of these drawings are red dot stickers. This intervention by the designer shifts the vase from a vessel of decoration to one of commentary. Red dots are familiar markers in the context of exhibitions—they signal a work has been sold, a transaction has taken place, and ownership has shifted. Here, they do more than mark: they obscure, interrupt, and conceal parts of the imagery. They create absences, silences, and disruptions, raising questions about what is hidden, protected, or commodified.
The choice of these motifs and interventions is closely tied to the history of Okawachiyama village, sometimes called the "Village of Secret Kilns." In the 17th century, following the arrival of Korean potters, the village became a center for porcelain production under the Nabeshima clan. The village was geographically enclosed and tightly controlled, with its methods and designs kept secret to ensure the clan’s monopoly on high-quality porcelain. The artisans lived and worked in seclusion, producing works of exquisite beauty under pressure and fear of punishment if they created something less than perfect. The artisans developed highly decorated patterns as a way of hiding natural yet unwanted blemishes in the porcelain.
The vase is not only an object of beauty but also a vessel of questions: What does it mean to inherit a tradition born of secrecy? What happens when beauty grows and develops from violence and enclosure? And how does the act of covering become a way of resilience and ingenuity?
