Check out this impressive large-scale ceramic installation 

Artist Sallisa Rosa has unveiled her new large-scale, ceramic installation titled Topography of Memory at the Collins Park Rotunda in Miami Beach. Marking the artist’s first solo presentation in the United States, the installation will be on view during Art Basel Miami Beach and until 17 December 2023.

How Its Made

It is composed of over 100 hand-made ceramic forms assembled from collected clay, creating an environment for visitors to explore. The work has been commissioned by Audemars Piguet Contemporary, with the brand’s in-house curatorial team working closely with guest curator Thiago de Paula Souza to support Rosa’s vision and the creation of the commission.

Topography of Memory will also be presented at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo next year from 16 March to 28 July 2024, marking the first time Audemars Piguet Contemporary will exhibit a commission in Brazil.

Biography

With Topography of Memory, Sallisa Rosa has created an immersive landscape that invites mediation and a physical encounter by the viewer. The sculptures on the floor are in the shape of stalagmites and resemble a cave, while the sculptures hanging from the ceiling are spherical, with their display recalling a planetarium.

The landscape is cast in an amber light and immersed in soft mist, symbolically embracing the underground world and the infinite cosmos. Composed of collected clay sourced by hand from Rio de Janeiro’s surrounding area, each sculpture was fired in an 800 degrees Celsius kiln housed in an underground pit, thereby offering a precise materiality that connects directly to the earth.

Art That Makes You Think

Interestingly, Rosa’s process invites visitors to reconsider their relationship to memory and land, and to the environment as a site of culture and of identities. With this commission, Rosa aims to explore our collective ways of remembering, drawing a connection between the erosion of the earth and the erosion of memory.

The fading memory of her grandmother, a core figure in bringing together the threads that make up her fragmented family history, is one of the main inspirations for Topography of Memory. In her artistic practice, Rosa works across photography, video, performance, and installations.

More information can be found on the Official Audemars Piguet Website to find out more.