Ring of Steele (left), The Barrel (right), 2021

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Impossible Bouquet is a contemporary ‘intervention’ into the domestic setting of the cottage of Heide I. This series of black, midfire ceramic sculptural vessels made during the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 are both functional wall vases and stand-alone wall-based sculptures.

'Redolent of insects inspecting for decay, Snaith’s ceramic intruders appear at the edges of the cottage’s interstices: the oven, fireplaces, mantels, the bath, and library bookshelves. Though rarely subject to contemporary intervention or critically engaged with, these romanticised domestic spaces were the setting against which so much of Heide’s complicated social history unfolded. A history of blurred boundaries, of obligation, control, and of pressures to balance conflicting public and private identities. A history based on the physical and spiritual displacement of those who lived here before. Entering through the widening cracks, Snaith’s clay slugs and snails quietly circle decomposing narratives. Mushrooms and ambiguous organic forms emerge from dark corners and feed on the matter collecting in the damp, still recesses of the cottage’s memories.’

Excerpt from Annika Aitken’s essay Over Flow, 2021.