EaTin, See What I Did There?

Another day, another exhibition! My most recent project at college, a 4-week whirlwind, exploring slip casting in eco once-fired clay designed to manufacture with reduced carbon emissions, is now on display at the Pangolin London gallery at Kings Place til 13th January.

EaTin: not Take-away, are a series of colourful and playful stacking oven-to-table dishes for convivial home-cooked meals.

Appropriated from foil take-away containers, EaTin are behavioural change dishes, or conversation starters, aiming to address the increasing reliance on ready-made meals and encourage a return to home-cooking and shared meals.

The printed texts challenge users and highlight issues; “S’up?” playfully links the action ‘to sup’ with the street slang for asking how someone is. Sharing family meals has been shown to improve teenage mental health as problems are aired and issues discussed round the dinner table. Other slogans included: Today’s Special, Made @ Home, Made by Us.

Stoke on Trent based, Endeka generously sponsored our project with ample supplies of their special EcoTherm Clay, that is able to be Raw Glazed, and so once fired, reducing the carbon emissions significantly in the production process. Most often used to manufacture hard-wearing dishes used in the catering industry, my response was to design a series of stacking oven-to-table dishes in varying colours. But I wanted to make a point too.  Hence the family-size, takeaway container shape and witty slogans aimed to get people thinking about the benefits of sharing a meal together. The project got me making miniature silk screens to direct print the slogans on the leather-hard cast dishes, mold making to capture the detail of the foil corners and edges, colouring the slip body and raw glazing on damp clay. Lots of firsts!