The Geo-cultural Conditions ofKintsugi

This paper concerns the analysis of transformative repair in ceramics using concepts of affect. The traditional Japanese craft of kintsugi, the repair of ceramics using urushi lacquer and gold or silver, is described and its techniques and historical relation to the Japanese tea ceremony discussed. Kintsugi is shown to demonstrate the propensity of repaired objects to embody dual perceptions of catastrophe and amelioration. Concepts of affect from the philosophers Giles Deleuze and Félix Guattari are used to illuminate these relationships and show how material capacities facilitate the movement of affects as forces that move through domestic objects and into sensation. Their concept of affect working in speeds and durations is discussed in regard to the sensory characteristics of cracks and their repair. The perception of kintsugi is explored using the concept of micro- and macropolitical expression, which broadens the analysis towards an understanding of traditional Japanese cultural sensitivities as a response to the breaking forces of geological phenomena, such as earthquakes, of which kintsugi ceramics, within the framework of this paper, are considered a material expression.I conclude the paper by contextualizing the craft of kintsugi to the broader field of transformative repair, and discuss contemporary works and modes of transformative repair in relation to kintsugi. This includes a discussion of my own ceramic works Archaeologic (2011–2015) that deploy kintsugi techniques with the use of photoluminescent pigment in order to potentialize an awareness of contemporary ecological issues. I make a few comments concerning the significance of kintsugi, as a culturally and ecologically embedded practice, to contemporary practitioners of transformative repair.