Terracotta Hand Study

Panjim City, Goa, India,
2017

Painted in Panjim City, Goa with St+art + Serendipity Arts Festival this mural focuses on Goan traditional crafts. An area is well-known for traditional artisan weavers and potters, the work was designed through an exploration into the artisanal history of the region.

Photographs by Guido van Helten

Project Details

Project

Terracotta Hand Study

Location

Panjim City, Goa, India

Commissioner

St+art India & Serendipity Arts Festival

Main area of Teresa Wallace’s studio where she demonstrates throwing without a pottery wheel. Goa, India. December 2017 Photograph: Guido van Helten — *Main area of Teresa Wallace’s studio where she demonstrates throwing without a pottery wheel.* Goa, India. December 2017 **Photograph: Guido van Helten**
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An exploration of ceramic and terracotta artisanal crafts unique to the Indian state of Goa led to a chance meeting with local artisan, Teresa Wallace, at the Mapusa marketplace in northern Goa. Having practiced handmade pottery since the age of 20, she now remains as the last of her kind still fashioning traditional cooking pots for over 62 years without the assistance of a pottery wheel in her studio near Porvorim, Goa. Through this observation of her specific trade, the resulting mural and photo series exhibits the materials and forms particular to this pottery tradition and how it has been carried down through generations of Goan artisans like Wallace.

This mural depicts Wallace’s hands as she shapes the clay, symbolic of the craftspeople and the vibrant traditions that still exist within the Indian state of Goa.