Circular memory: fragments carved in time

With Re-Fragment, ceramic artist and architect Tanja Haramincic invites us to look beyond the broken and see beauty in the overlooked. Drawing from the geological rhythms of Deep Time and the urgent call for material sustainability, her work transforms ceramic waste into poetic, functional objects-fragments of a circular future. 

Tanja Haramincic is a Croatian ceramic artist and architect based in Milan. After nearly a decade in architecture and interior design, she founded Claytical Ceramics in 2021 to explore the expressive and narrative potential of clay. In 2023, she co-founded Conca Lab, a community ceramics studio in Milan fostering creative exchange through workshops focused on clay, craft, and circular design.

Haramincic’s work investigates the intersection of waste, geology, and material culture repurposing glazed and fired ceramic refuse into new experimental forms. Her practice emphasizes circularity, resource localization, and the tactile story of transformation. In 2024, supported by the Culture Moves Europe mobility grant, she undertook a research residency in Lanzarote, delving into volcanic clays and local geological materials. 

My work explores the intersection of ceramics, waste, and geology. It encourages us to recognize the value in every object created, understand its place within Deep Time, and reflect on how the waste we generate becomes part of the sedimentary record-how contemporary ceramics might become artifacts of the Anthropocene.

Re-Fragment (2023) is a series of ceramic earthenware coasters that reimagines circularity in ceramics. Each piece is composed of smooth, white clay inlaid with multicolored shards of recycled, previously fired ceramics. Powdered fragments, broken test tiles, and crushed glaze remnants once discarded are embedded into the surface, forming a terrazzo-like mosaic of waste made beautiful. 

The process behind Re-Fragment is both meticulous and meaningful. Ceramic offcuts are hand-crushed, sieved, and sorted into various grades of chamotte and powder. These are then reintroduced into fresh clay bodies, giving each new piece the memory and texture of what came before. The coasters are slip-cast or hand-built and then fired again-closing the loop of transformation. 

This layered approach creates not only unique, one-of-a-kind objects, but also a conceptual framework that celebrates material intelligence and sustainability. Each coaster becomes an artifact of its own making a palimpsest of production, failure, rediscovery, and renewal. 

In Re-Fragment, shards become stories. Fragments become futures. And ceramics, far from static, emerge as vibrant records of both human intention and geological time.