Lily Ellerbrock

My Hands Speak in Every Language

My project aims to show how art & crafts are not bound to culture or borders and can help to find comfort and new perspectives in an unfamiliar environment.

Do you need a shared language when you can speak with your hands?

A craft stays a craft in its core, no matter the ethnicity, nationality, or language of the crafter. A pot stays a pot, no matter if its maker is from this or that side of the world.

What power does the product of crafting hold? Since language evaporates in the air, but a pot stays.

Craft, manifest for example in the form of a pot, holds power in all stages of its making.

The reason why it’s made

The environment it’s made in

Alone or with someone else

The time and energy spent making it

The function of the final product

What it means to you, or them, or us

A craft becomes a multifunctional material immateriality. It exists, but it implies more than its shape.

Larisa used to work as a ceramics artist to follow her passion. Now she makes pots in order to find comfort in her new living situation, but also to show people what Ukraine is. Ultimately she wants to send the profits made from selling her craft to Ukraine and support her people in their struggle.

Lineoleum Print and Workshop Performance, 2022