With shapes built from clay, influenced by the plant world and the organic rhythm of nature, they blend and become one with their surroundings. As living ecosystems, they provide shelter, food and water for the insects and animals we want to attract to our gardens.
Pia Amsell, designer and ceramicist, has her roots in Gagnef and lives in Stockholm. Educated at Beckmans College of Design in the 1990s, after many years of creative exploration as a product and furniture designer, she went on to train as a ceramicist, first at Leksand Folk High School and later with a master's degree from Konstfack, the Craft! Ceramics & Glass programme.
Pia works mainly with hand-built ceramics, where her working method is characterised by intuition and a close dialogue with the material. She allows the form to emerge organically, often using the coiling technique to create complex structures. This process challenges control and expectations, opening up new insights and unexpected opportunities to understand and appreciate the inherent qualities of the material.
A recurring theme in her work is the garden - a place of reflection, growth and transformation. The personal experience of the garden as a meaningful space permeates her work. In this project, she has explored the possibility of creating forms that are not only visual objects, but also have functional properties that favour biodiversity.
By integrating cavities, vessels, and terraces into her constructions, she creates a living infrastructure that promotes natural processes. This structure offers shelter for small animals, serves as a habitat for the decomposition of garden waste into nutrient-rich food, and also acts as water reservoirs and sites for the growth of mosses and pollinator-friendly plants. The ceramic objects become an integral part of the garden's ecosystem and symbolise how humans, vegetation, and wildlife can interact to foster a deeper understanding of our relationship with nature.