During the residency, I began working with fragments of dried clay from earlier works. By rehydrating them, wrapping them in fabrics, and burying them in sand and water, the shapes began to change. Hybrid, larval forms emerged—some resembled fossils, others cocoons. I was drawn to this logic of metamorphosis: from finished object to fragment, from fragment to vestige, from vestige to mental image. The pieces were organized according to the principles of the art of memory, following the rules described in the Ad Herennium and studied by Frances Yates.

The exhibition included pieces that traced the different phases of the material’s metamorphosis: shells, molds, notebooks—some solid, others soft—alluding to the circularity of time, cycles of making, care, and transformation, while also suggesting something hidden—something that cannot be seen or named but still leaves a trace.

The exhibition’s title was born from a conversation between children I overheard during the residency, in which they spoke of parts of the body “that have no name.” That idea—the hidden names—became a poetic guide to think about what is not said but felt, what is not seen but remains.

My work with ceramics has always carried an archaeological perspective—not so much in the sense of seeking ruins from the past, but of excavating processes, recovering gestures, and observing how forms evolve over time. In Hidden Names, I wanted to make visible the fragility between what we remember and what we can no longer name. A visual essay on memory, the body, and art as an act of remembering.

I also discovered, intuitively, that my notebooks were a key tool. In them I record obsessions, lists, mental maps, recurring phrases. By drawing the spaces between one note and another, I began to outline what was absent. That’s when I realized that what seemed intangible—what has no name—could take form through repeated gesture, affection, and attention.