'The Space Within.' Porcelain 47cm x 35cm x 46cm This work explores the paradox of breath as a site of existential vulnerability and the ribcage as a structure of protection. Breath is conceived not merely as a physiological necessity but as a continual exposure of self to the world, an ever-unfolding condition that reveals our openness, dependency, and capacity for transformation.

As the liminal space where interiority encounters exteriority, breath functions as an involuntary gesture that sustains life while simultaneously attuning us to our own permeability and limits. Breath marks the threshold between self and world, mediating dynamics of presence, absence, and exposure. Its essential invisibility and relentless repetition reveal the boundaries of autonomy: to breathe is to invite the outside within, to relinquish certainty, to move within a rhythm that is never wholly our own.

In this sense, breathing enacts an unceasing openness to encounter, change, and interruption, embodying the intrinsic vulnerability at the core of existence. Building on this conceptual framework, the material and technical methodologies underpinning the work are shaped by a rigorous engagement with process as philosophical inquiry.

Through sustained experimentation, a methodology was devised for suspending attenuated porcelain forms in the kiln. This orchestrated interplay between control and relinquishment mirrors the existential dynamic of breath and boundary: in part, the porcelain is left to respond autonomously to the contingencies of gravity, heat and time. In doing so, the material enacts its own agency, inscribing unpredictability and transformation into the body of the work.

This negotiation not only foregrounds the tension between intentionality and openness but also evokes the philosophical implications of vulnerability, where the form, like breath, is shaped as much by what is yielded as by what is held.