What is Luxury? - Object in Focus: Rare Earthenware by Unknown Fields Division

Rare Earthenware, Unknown Fields Division with ceramicist Kevin Callaghan, 2014–5, black stoneware and radioactive mine tailings, © Toby Smith

While journeys to extraordinary places are the cornerstone of luxury travel, this project follows more well-concealed journeys taking place across global supply chains. It retraces rare earth elements, which are widely used in high end electronics and green technologies, to their origins. The film documents their voyage from container ships and ports, wholesalers and factories, back to the banks off a barely-liquid radioactive lake in Inner Mongolia, where the refining process takes place. Unknown Fields Division have used mud from this lake to craft a set of three ceramic vessels. Each is sized in relation to the amount of waste created in the production of three items of technology – a smartphone, a featherweight laptop and the cell of a smart car battery. Each is described by the designers as a testament to ‘the toxic shadow that our everyday objects cast across the earth’.

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  A Chinese factory worker assembles the components of our tech gadgets along a conveyor belt that stretches from Inner Mongolia to a London retail store.
  Film still.
  © Toby Smith/Unknown Fields

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  Unknown Fields collecting radioactive tailings material from besides the worlds largest rare earth minerals refinery in Inner Mongolia.
  Film still
  © Toby Smith/Unknown Fields

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  Radiation scientists test the toxic clay collected from the tailings lake and find it to be 3 times background radiation.
  Film still
  © Toby Smith/Unknown Fields

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  The amount of toxic clay produced in the manufacture of a single smart phone is moulded into a traditional Ming vase form.
  Film still
  © Toby Smith/Unknown Fields

Unknown Fields Division is run by Liam Young and Kate Davies and is based at the Architectural Association.

Visit Unknown Fields Division's website