Back to Soil
El Sur, Mexico
January - Febuary 2023
In January of 2023, I attended the El Sur Residency in Mexico City. For five weeks I was given the opportunity to work in clay, explore new techniques, and learn about the history of ceramics in Mexico. I took this moment to uncover this project that had been in my heart for years. I created three memorial urns in celebration and honor of my Abula, my Upa, and my father.
People die. Families go through metamorphosis. They evolve and change. We are handed things we don’t know how to carry. We realize we are holding things we did not pick up.
To be a child and lose grandparents is to be introduced to death, confronted with it in a natural way. To be a child still and lose a parent is to question everything. To have your world crumble and be forced to get up again. To understand the world is not fair and know that the only truth is change.
Here, I have attempted to see the things I am holding, confront the ancestors who have handed them to me, and go about putting them down. To lay down the generational trauma passed to me, my own anger and pain they have caused me in their leaving, and allow the water and clay to wash them away. I will continue this every day until I die. There is beauty in this truth.
I have used clay from Mexico and maison stains to create a blending of colors. My family is multi-cultural, originating from the US, Germany, Switzerland, and spending years in Venezuela. They came together, all of us, for many years in Miami. We momentarily found peace, a peace that shaped my childhood. This is how I choose to remember them.
For my Abula, Anna Maria Hitz’, the sweet flower that bloomed in her own time.
For my Opa, Ulrich Bierschenk, the backbone to my family.
For my father, Theodor Bierschenk, for what it lacked in time, your story has made up for in adventure.