The Mended Earth Pavilion

 This pavilion is a participatory art installation conceived as a cluster of large-scale clay vessels that invites the public to become co-creators in its ongoing life cycle. The installation’s permanent, fired and glazed outer body remains sturdy over time, but the structure’s interior serves as a type of sacrificial skin, made of unfired natural clay designed to weather and crack, while a glazed roof funnels rainwater into a central well. The floors of the structure will be permeable, under which a channel of water will carry fallen bits of clay to the central well to be rejuvenated by the rainwater. This natural process creates a slurry from the fallen clay, providing the very material needed for the artwork’s continuation. Here, visitors are not passive observers but active participants, invited to mix in colored pigments if they wish and press the paste into the fissures with their own hands. This endless act of breaking and mending is the core of the piece; the pavilion becomes a living sculpture where the lines of repair are not scars but celebrated marks of collective authorship.