Hidden Intention / Failure Atelier
Kunsthal Aarhus, 2026
All exhibition images © Jacob Friis-Holm Neilsen.
Hidden Intention / Failure Atelier
What happens when an artist deliberately designs a process to fail?
My contribution to The Hall of Failure takes two related forms: Hidden Intention, a body of ceramic sculptures, and Failure Atelier, a live ceramics workshop program running within the show. Both are built around the same question and the same process.
Hidden Intention begins in the studio. I make ceramic sculptures through 3D printing with clay, a process I choose for its sometimes unpredictable outcomes. The printer and software are fixed systems, while the clay is wet, heavy, soft, and follows its own logic — responding always to pressure, moisture, and gravity. I make design choices that encourage this unstable machine-material relationship. During printing, the clay slumps and shifts, creating forms I can’t predict; I don’t see this as a probelm to fix but instead as the engine that drives the work. The sculptures in this exhibition are the result of engineered unpredictability, where failure becomes a collaborator rather than something to avoid.
The work questions our ideas of craftsmanship. As digital tools become increasingly common in creative and professional life, what does it mean to make something when you don't want to optimize, systematize and control every outcome? What becomes possible when you share that control with a material and a machine?
Where Hidden Intention presents the results of this process, Failure Atelier opens it up to the public. A working reproduction of my studio is installed within the show, where visitors are invited to make their own clay sculptures using the same tools and processes as the artworks on display. The process is designed so that unpredictability and failure aren't obstacles but the point of the process. To join there’s no experience necessary, and no artistic pressure. Objects made in the Atelier are added to the exhibition throughout its six-month run, making the show a living, growing collection of experiments.
Together, Hidden Intention and Failure Atelier propose that failure is not the opposite of making something well. It’s where the interesting things happen.
Currently on view through December 2026 as a part of The Hall of Failure exhibition at Kunsthal Aarhus, DK. Shown alsongside work from artists Anders Bonnesen, Maria Viftrup and FACTORY WORKERS UNITE (Tina Helen and Søren Thilo Funder). This project was supported in part by Aarhus Kommune Kulturforvaltningen and Kunsthal Aarhus.
+ Exhibition review at Artmatter.dk
What happens when an artist deliberately designs a process to fail?
My contribution to The Hall of Failure takes two related forms: Hidden Intention, a body of ceramic sculptures, and Failure Atelier, a live ceramics workshop program running within the show. Both are built around the same question and the same process.
Hidden Intention begins in the studio. I make ceramic sculptures through 3D printing with clay, a process I choose for its sometimes unpredictable outcomes. The printer and software are fixed systems, while the clay is wet, heavy, soft, and follows its own logic — responding always to pressure, moisture, and gravity. I make design choices that encourage this unstable machine-material relationship. During printing, the clay slumps and shifts, creating forms I can’t predict; I don’t see this as a probelm to fix but instead as the engine that drives the work. The sculptures in this exhibition are the result of engineered unpredictability, where failure becomes a collaborator rather than something to avoid.
The work questions our ideas of craftsmanship. As digital tools become increasingly common in creative and professional life, what does it mean to make something when you don't want to optimize, systematize and control every outcome? What becomes possible when you share that control with a material and a machine?
Where Hidden Intention presents the results of this process, Failure Atelier opens it up to the public. A working reproduction of my studio is installed within the show, where visitors are invited to make their own clay sculptures using the same tools and processes as the artworks on display. The process is designed so that unpredictability and failure aren't obstacles but the point of the process. To join there’s no experience necessary, and no artistic pressure. Objects made in the Atelier are added to the exhibition throughout its six-month run, making the show a living, growing collection of experiments.
Together, Hidden Intention and Failure Atelier propose that failure is not the opposite of making something well. It’s where the interesting things happen.
Currently on view through December 2026 as a part of The Hall of Failure exhibition at Kunsthal Aarhus, DK. Shown alsongside work from artists Anders Bonnesen, Maria Viftrup and FACTORY WORKERS UNITE (Tina Helen and Søren Thilo Funder). This project was supported in part by Aarhus Kommune Kulturforvaltningen and Kunsthal Aarhus.
+ Exhibition review at Artmatter.dk
Reindeer Jar, 2026. 3D printed mixed clay, glaze. 18.5 x 18.5 x 50 cm.
Detail.
Detail.
Small Bottle, 2026. 3D printedstoneware clay. 17 x 17 x 51 cm.
Detail.
Loop Bottle (L), 2026. 3D printed and hand-sculpted mixed clay. 19 x 19 x 47 cm. 
Scribble Ewer, 2026. 3D printed and hand-sculpted mixed clay. 19 x 24 x 48 cm.
Bird’s Nest Vase, 2026. 3D printed red clay, wax, oil, mineral pigment. 17 x 18 x 30 cm.
Double Amphora, 2026. 3D printed and hand-sculpted mixed clay. 26 x 26 x 44 cm. (in private collection)
Rie Vase, 2026. 3D printed and hand-sculpted mixed clay. 17 x 17 x 59 cm.
Rabbit Ear Jar, 2026. 3D printed and hand-sculpted stoneware clay, resin, gold leaf. 18.5 x 18.5 x 45 cm. (in private collection)
Loopy Vase with handles 01 and 02, 2026. 3D printed mixed clay. 14 x 19 x 42 cm.
Bottomless Vase with handles, 2026. 3D printed red clay, wax. 40 x 35 x 38 cm. (in private collection)
Lantern, 2026. 3D printed mixed clay. 18 x 18 x 27 cm.
Loop Bottle (M), 2026. 3D printed mixed clay, wax, oil, mineral pigment. 20 x 22 x 32 cm.
Mug, 2026. 3D printed and hand sculpted red clay glaze. 16 x 14 x 9 cm.
Detail.
Pitcher, 2026. 3D printed and hand sculpted red clay, glaze. 16 x 14 x 16 cm.
Lantern Vase, 2026. 3D printed stoneware clay, glaze. 19 x 19 x 39 cm.
Loop Bottle (S), 2026. 3D printed and hand-sculpted stoneware, resin, gold. 
Draped bowl, 2026. 3D printed red clay. 14 x 18 x 9 cm.