TarraWarra Biennial 2021: Slow Moving Waters

A forensic approach to form and material intimately connects Yasmin Smith’s ceramic practice to an archaeology of place. Emerging from a rigorous research process undertaken on-site, her installation Terroir takes its shape, colour and texture directly from the vineyard of the TarraWarra Estate. Gnarled forms of ceramic grapevines climb the gallery wall, their gradient in tune with the raked vines visible outside in the landscape. Enlisting TarraWarra’s viniculturists’ knowledge of the local hydrology, geology and soil composition, Smith cast grapevine prunings in clay before firing them with a glaze developed from the ashes of their burnt remains. Ribbons of bark...