Kaffepannan - Kahvipannu

This sculpture takes the form of a traditional coffee pot — a kahvipannu, as it is called in Meänkieli. Once a common way of brewing coffee, these pots have become increasingly rare in contemporary coffee culture. In the Torne Valley, however, I encountered them repeatedly, often made from cast iron or copper and distinguished by the characteristic knob on the lid. They are still carried on journeys into nature, where coffee is boiled over open fires, continuing a tradition deeply connected to everyday life and the landscape.

This sculpture is made from recycled stoneware clay and finished with a black crater glaze that evokes the surface of aged cast-iron pots. The material and glaze were chosen to create a sense of wear, use, and history embedded within the object.

Through craft, time becomes visible. Materials age, surfaces change, and the traces left behind hold stories. What was once new gradually becomes something else—heritage, memory, testimony. Here, change and continuity meet. Here, the coffeepot becomes a link between past and present, filled, emptied, and filled again. This ruin-like sculpture embodies what once was, memories and stories of the past, things that’s been lost but resurfaced, evoking the transience of life. It reflects on how traditions, knowledge, and ways of living are passed down, altered, and sometimes lost between generations.