Q&A with Attua Aparicio

Thanks! It feels really nice to be recognised by a design institution like the Design Museum. It makes me feel appreciated and welcomed in the wide and varied design community.

Experimental, material driven and playful.

I remember making a figure out of bread dough during a summer camp, I kneaded it so much that it almost didn’t rise. I think I was 6.

While working with polystyrene in Silo Studio’s NSEPS project, I never felt totally comfortable. For quite a while, I was looking for more natural materials to work with, and after doing some work with marble and glass I learned that borosilicate glass does not get recycled. I wanted to work with this waste stream and I combined it with ceramics because both need heat to transform.

At the moment I am still very focused on ways of combining ceramics and glass. But I also feel strongly connected to textiles – I would like to do something soft. I also would like to explore solid wood.

There is a lot of experimentation with ideas and colours, but direct material experimentation based on trial and error takes time, space and is therefore expensive. I think experimentation is often not understood – if you know what is going to happen, it's not really experimentation.

For me, playfulness is also part of the experimentation process. I almost always try to test at least two things in one piece. This might be a glaze, or the form, or the making technique.

I find collaboration very fulfilling. To talk about ideas with people that you love and admire is one of my favourite things to do – and to actually go and make something together is amazing.

My deepest collaboration so far is the one with Oscar Lesing from Silo Studio. In our work together, I find it really interesting when I look at the final pieces and can see parts that come from Oscar, parts that come from me – and then a ‘grey’ area that is unidentifiable and the essence of the collaboration. To get to this level, time and trust is needed. The collaboration with Saelia and Jochen are more layered, where you can see more clearly what comes from me and what comes from them.

I am inspired and encouraged by the community of designers in London, which is so vibrant and friendly. But my main sources of inspiration are materials, processes and spaces.

That's a difficult question as there is no one size fits all response. But I'd say: don’t compare yourself to others, don’t look too much online, do work, try to find your strengths and make them stronger before you fight them. For me, it works to find the right level of comfort versus challenge.

I would like people to get inspired and curious about materials.

Background image: Expressive proverbs. Found plates discarded from industry and waste borosilicate glass, 2019.