Ceramics

Xийморь

Monica Gansukh

Exhibition

See it On Campus: Level 2

Visitor Info

Artist’s Statement

Throughout my time at Emily Carr, I have explored different approaches within ceramics, working through themes such as addiction, trompe l’oeil and the preservation of objects. However, over time I have found myself consistently returning to incorporating my own cultural practice into my work.

My practice begins with questioning what it means to exist between places, and how that experience shapes identity over time. Growing up between countries, ideas of home and cultural connection have never felt fixed. This sense of in betweenness informs my work, where forms drawn from Mongolian culture are not preserved as static references, but instead altered, stretched and reconfigured to reflect transformation while still carrying a core presence.

Working primarily in ceramics, I use clay as a material that holds both memory and change. My work mostly draws from Mongolian architectural elements from the ger (yurt), particularly doors and interior roof structures. These forms carry cultural meaning, but are reconfigured into large scale vessels that move away from their original function. In doing so, they become objects that hold traces of cultural memory shaped by time, movement and lived experience.

This body of work exists as an ongoing series, with each piece building on the last. Earlier works focused on more direct symbolic structures, such as a three sided distorted door representing past, present and future through motifs like Ulzii, Alkhan and Tumen nasan khee. While these references continue to inform the work, they have gradually shifted from explicit representation into something more embedded within the form itself, as seen in my more recent yurt roof vessel. Scale has also become an important consideration; by working at a larger scale I emphasize physical presence and create space for my culture within contexts where it is often overlooked or misunderstood. I also extend this approach to contemporary objects, transforming temporary, disposable items into ceramic forms, further reinforcing my interest in preservation and permanence across both cultural and present day materials.

Rather than presenting culture as something fixed or intact, my work considers how it is carried, altered and continuously reformed through lived experiences. These vessels do not function as direct representations, but as accumulations of memory, distortion and translation. In this way, ceramics becomes a means of holding both continuity and change where cultural forms are not only remembered, but reimagined and sustained through making.