The “Čajek” tea room in Maribor will provide the exhibition venue for unique handmade ceramic teapots and teacups made by Metka Slamič and Boštjan Žuran. The culture of drinking tea has a long tradition and even today the Chinese as well as the Japanese and the Indians, who have begun the real rituals of drinking tea, claim that they have discovered it. In Europe, it was first used as a medicine for headache, asthma, cold and even for the plague. However, making and drinking tea is also a social event. It is the most ordinary event where everyday items, such as teapot, teacup, etc., are used. We often realise the value of everyday things when we lose them or break them. These items have many hidden meanings and represent the invisible structure of our lives – your favourite coffee mug that a friend brought from Istanbul, a chipped teapot that you now use as a vase, a plate that reminds you of the time when your father proposed to your mother, etc.
These ceramic products are handmade, combined with an industrial technique. The authors research into the role of everyday items, how they fulfill their psychological and physical functions, the life that builds around them; or in the words of Lao Zi: “...Therefore profit comes from what is there; Usefulness from what is not there ...”.
Thirty spokes share the wheel's hub;
It is the center hole that makes it useful.
Shape clay into a vessel;
It is the space within that makes it useful.
Cut doors and windows for a room;
It is the holes which make it useful.
Therefore profit comes from what is there;
Usefulness from what is not there.
(Lao Zi: Dao De Jing, chapter 11)
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Teapots Aat the “Čajek” Tea Room (Exhibition)
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