Littoral Landscapes: Intertidal-Inspired Sculptures in Clay with Kristiana Chan — Jul 26 - 27

Dates: July 26, 2025 → July 27, 2025
Times: Saturday 10AM-4PM: Tidepools, lunch break, and guided studio time Sunday 10AM-2PM: Studio time, decorating pieces, wrap up
Level: All levels

Workshop Description:
This workshop combines time exploring Mendocino's tidepools, connecting with the environment and drawing inspiration from its forms to create unique ceramic sculptures. Back in the studio we'll learn basic hand building and surface decoration techniques, re-imaging the future of these forms inspired by our observations in clay. Organisms in tide pools have adapted brilliantly to not only withstand, but thrive in, an environment that experiences constant and extreme changing conditions. From hard-shelled clams and crustaceans to venomous and colorful anemones and sea slugs, we’ll learn about the unique adaptations of these creatures and glean wisdom from them about our own survival in a changing world.

We will consider themes of speculative futures and science-fiction, hybridization, and climate-change while also considering ancestral wisdom and technologies by looking at the past, present, and future histories of the landscape and its human stewards and settlers.

What to expect: time in the ocean, exploring and observing the tide pools and its inhabitants, working in clay and surface decoration in the studio (no prior clay experience required)

About the Instructor:
Kristiana 莊礼恩 Chan (she/they) is a first generation Chinese Malaysian artist, writer, and educator from the American South living in California. Her work examines the material memory of the landscape and the excluded histories of the Asian American diaspora. She researches the political, historical, and environmental heritage of the landscape and its material elements and organisms incorporating their properties into her processes. She is interested in the relationships between themes of migration, labor, trade, and reciprocity with the natural world, challenging ideals of extractive capitalism and grounding her objects in material tactility.

Previous projects have focused on the lost stories of early Chinese diaspora settlers in California, and their connections to early industries like fishing and mining. These stories, images, and references entangle the historical and mythological, while the gathered materials attempt to transcend gaps in the written record. Kristiana is interested in themes of science and speculative fiction, and the littoral coastal zones, gleaning ancient wisdom from environments that have adapted to rapidly changing conditions.

She is a recipient of the Rydell Visual Arts Fellowship and has been a resident at Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Tides Institute, and Stelo Arts. She has shown at the Asian Art Museum, Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, University of San Francisco, Stelo Arts, SOMArts, Vessel Gallery, Kearny Street Workshop, and the David Brower Center. She is a Teaching Artist Mentor with the Performing Arts Workshop, a graduate of the New York Foundation of Arts Immigrant Artist program, and has curated with Kearny Street Workshop and the California Institute for Integral Studies. She is a current MFA candidate at UC Berkeley.

Required Materials:
- Footwear and attire for the field (wading boots or athletic sandals) Dress in layers

Optional Materials:
- Reference Images Camera/sketchbook Personal clay tools