The remnants of the cobelt up close.
Cobalt Stories
Critical raw materials exploration
May, 2019
May, 2019
In my BFA thesis I explored practices around the critical raw material cobalt. It’s history, and current relevance in Swedish discourse. As the demand for cobalt grows due to its application in rechargeable batteries in smartphones, laptops and electric cars, the metal is predicted to become scarce in a near future.
An artistic practice of working with stoneware clay became an unearthing that allowed me to explore new ways to relate to the material, to embody its stories. Stories of a metal which moves across different cultural and historical materialities, shaping our everyday objects and the lives involved in its unearthing: from electronics to elegantly painted ceramic tiles, and to the hand dug cobalt mines of Congo.
The result of a critical design process is the speculative find of remnants of the cobelt: a creature believed to have inhabited mines of 16th century Europe, eventually giving the material its name. I close by posing the following question:
By giving the material a body, a shape, of its own, can we start to relate to it differently? With curiosity? With caution? With care?
Initial Unpicking Process
What is in a cobalt blue glass bottle?
What is in a cobalt blue glass bottle?
Materiality
An exploration of cobalt's history and area of use in relation to ceramics.
Tile making and Swedish faience
An exploration of cobalt's history and area of use in relation to ceramics.
Tile making and Swedish faience
Material samples, white stoneware.
Telling a cobalt story
Through explorative craft inspired by cobalt's history, context of extraction and chemical properties in lithium ion batteries.
Cobalt oxide molecular structure in lithium ion batteries.
Finding the shape of cobalt.
Showing the interaction between the hand and the
material from the molding process.
material from the molding process.
Highlighting the imprints of the fingers with cobalt oxide - before firing and glazing.
Glazed and fired pieces of tile, and a tangible interaction with cobalt oxide.
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By giving the material a body, a shape, of its own, can we start to relate to it differently?
Sketching the cobelt, based on the imprinted tiles.
The cobelt visualized.
