Generations : interpreting Iron Age ceramics
digital ceramics, 2025.
This work explores how generative AI might function as a creative tool in ceramic practice, a tool that can support rather than replace creative decision-making and material knowledge. I'm working in dialogue with Iron Age vessels (500 BC–400 AD) from the collection at Horsens Museum in Denmark. The museum's collection of Iron Age ceramics comes from excavations at established archaeological sites like Hedegård as well as finds from farmer's fields and everyday construction sites around the municipality.
What draws me to these pots is their complexity. Ceramics from this period were used for everything from cooking to burial rituals, and they carry nuanced regional styles, varied clay bodies, and decorative techniques that reflect who and where they were made. I'm not trying to recreate these historical pots, but asking: what new forms can emerge when history becomes material for contemporary design?
In my working process I integrate four types of artifacts: digital artifacts (AI-generated 3D models), historical artifacts, machine artifacts (clay 3D printing), and, of course, human artifacts. I use AI in two ways: reconstructing 3D digital forms from photographs, and generating vessels from text prompts. I treat these outputs as part of my sketching process; they are generative design prompts that help to expand my visual thinking. After creating a digital design, I build the vessels physically through a mixture of clay 3D printing and hand sculpting. This AI-informed digital-physical process has become my way of bringing historical archives into my studio, in ways that can directly shape the forms I make.
Special thanks to ceramicist Anna Andersen and Horsens Museum for their collaboration in this project.
What draws me to these pots is their complexity. Ceramics from this period were used for everything from cooking to burial rituals, and they carry nuanced regional styles, varied clay bodies, and decorative techniques that reflect who and where they were made. I'm not trying to recreate these historical pots, but asking: what new forms can emerge when history becomes material for contemporary design?
In my working process I integrate four types of artifacts: digital artifacts (AI-generated 3D models), historical artifacts, machine artifacts (clay 3D printing), and, of course, human artifacts. I use AI in two ways: reconstructing 3D digital forms from photographs, and generating vessels from text prompts. I treat these outputs as part of my sketching process; they are generative design prompts that help to expand my visual thinking. After creating a digital design, I build the vessels physically through a mixture of clay 3D printing and hand sculpting. This AI-informed digital-physical process has become my way of bringing historical archives into my studio, in ways that can directly shape the forms I make.
Special thanks to ceramicist Anna Andersen and Horsens Museum for their collaboration in this project.
3D-printed and hand sculpted earthenware, mineral pigment, wax, twine. Various dimensions.
Set detail.
Mug vase and Window jar; 3D printed and hand sculpted earthenware, wax and mineral pigment, 2025. 15 x 15 x 35 cm and 18 x 18 x 20 cm.
Detail, Mug vase.
Fracture pot and Ear urn; 3D printed and hand sculpted earthenware, wax and mineral pigment, 2025. 20 x 20 x 26 cm and 19 x 19 x 31 cm.
Detail, Ear Urn.
Wavy jar and Standing jug; 3D printed and hand sculpted earthenware, wax, mineral pigment, twine, 2025. 20 x 19 x 24 cm and 20 x 20 x 38 cm.
Iron Age clay jug fragment, from the collection at Horsens Museum.
Iron Age clay flask, , from the collection at Horsens Museum.
Iron Age clay pots, from the collection at Horsens Museum.
Iron Age clay jug, from the collection at Horsens Museum.
Iron Age pot, excavated in Horsens, DK.
AI-generated 3D model, made using photographs of the pot.
Fracture pot; 3D-printed and hand sculpted earthenware. 20 x 20 x 26 cm.
Iron Age pot, excavated in Horsens, DK.
AI-generated 3D model of a “Danish Iron Age pot excavated in Horsens, Denmark.”
Window jar; 3D-printed and hand sculpted earthenware, wax. 18 x 18 x 20 cm.