Porcelain Rooms at The Geffrye Museum

"The idea for this exhibition came from our having grown tired of seeing pots on plinths." Christine Lalumia, Geffrye museum.

This exhibit ran from the 24th Sept 2002 to 19th Jan 2003.

'Looking at the scraps of paper, the images, lists and photocopies stuck to my wall I realise that I've been accumulating and sifting ideas for this room for over ten years. I have tried to create an installation in which the pots define the structure of the space. The room pushes at the archtectual elements, opens up the walls and the floor and the ceiling and the windows as places for te pots to be. It is reminiscent of rooms throughout history which have been devoted to the display of porcelain but it has its feet firmly placed in the other places where you see groups of pots together: the chemist's laboratory bench, the shelves of the tea marchant. I wanted to capture some sense of mass, a feeling of booty, treasure, cargo, tribute. The room is complete but it feels capable of endless refinement and redefinition.'

Edmund de Waal