(Archive) Crafting Imperfections of Tea Clay

Tea Clay and its "imperfections"

Aiming to propose solutions for the huge amount of tea waste in China, Jiwei Zhou created bio-based material Tea Clay that has its own characteristics, porous, shrinking, cracking, bending, and getting mouldy. Usually when people see this material, their immediate reactions are “Is it waterproof? How long can it last?” We are triggered by this constant pursuit of “efficiency, high-performance, and perfection” in materials that can only be imperfectly grown by mother nature.

Experiment with the shrinkage during the dehydration of Tea Clay for desired results

We present a variety of Tea Clay objects that are designed to shine its imperfections: shrinkage and curvature. We are inspired by the natural process of the opening and closing of flowers and curving fallen leaves. The dehydration process of Tea Clay in a semi-designed mould allows the material to form in a collaborative process of human intention and naturally occurring “imperfection”. Applicable to other water-based bio-materials, our project, Crafting Imperfections, is furthermore to challenge audiences’ understanding of bio-based materials and to celebrate the imperfections, which stands for, in our opinions, the beauty of nature. In another word, the project is to challenge the long-existing anthropocentric way of extracting and converting materials into “standardised” objects for human needs.