Introducing - Latrine Pubbliche

In another life I was the founder and owner of Mango in a Pot in Amsterdam, and what a glorious time that was. I started the community ceramic space in late 2022 with the objective of creating with clay in company. I learned a ton and met so many beautiful individuals. The time I spent running that community space had a strong impact on me, and when I sold the space at the start of this year, I was crushed. I grieved the loss of the community I had spent years building, but I knew I had to move on in order to be fully present in what I was constructing here in Italy.

After months of deliberating whilst crafting my new ceramics identity -TAURA- I have reached a conclusion. I realized that for me, community is part of the creation process. I got so used to sharing my ceramics studio in Amsterdam that I wanted to try out what having the entire studio to myself would feel like. It was certainly better in some ways, but I felt a vital ingredient was missing. That ingredient was connection and collaboration, a part of my process I have since been trying to reclaim.

Latrine Pubbliche will be how this community aspect takes form. For those who aren’t aware, “Latrine Pubbliche” means “public latrines” in italian. Not the most romantic name, but a nod to the legacy of the space we will be creating in. The studio is located in a former historic public toilet embedded into the medieval walls of Perugia, it still has a functional toilet, but luckily the space itself has been completely modernized and renovated.

Not really starting over

It occurred to me that I have all these years of experience building a community studio, and boy did I have a fun time doing it, despite the challenges I faced. Why not turn my gem of a creative space into something that can serve me and a community of creative potters at the same time? So, I will be doing just that, opening the doors of my Latrine Pubbliche to whoever is interested in creating with high-fire clay.

Now, I know that Amsterdam and Perugia are wildly different places, which has actually allowed me to play around with the concept. Latrine Pubbliche will be a blending of the two city’s philosophies. The strange part is that the both Mango in a Pot and Latrine Pubbliche are exactly the same size inside (~24m2, tiny…) so I am really prepared with the technicalities of a small ceramic studio, yet this space here in Perugia has something I didn’t have in Amsterdam - a private courtyard and a roof terrace, allowing the operations to have a private outdoor element. This gives me more room to play around with the space, for example I am able to construct an outdoor greenhouse in the courtyard to act as a walk-in wet-box for the community, a major space saving solution (and it just looks awesome). Plus we have a bit of an advantage when it comes to climate (sorry Amsterdam friends, I don’t want to rub it in) so we can play around with year-round gardening on the studio’s rooftop as a community.

This studio will also be more specialized for those who work with stoneware, which is quite unusual to find in this area of the world. I imported my high-fire kilns from Germany and the Netherlands and I have personally been working with stoneware for years. The studio’s materials are deeply researched and the focus on this specific way of creating with clay will allow members to experiment in ways that weren’t formerly possible in a communal space in Umbria.

This will also be a bi-lingual space! Having lived in Italy for 2 years now, I am nearly fluent in italian and of course my mother tongue of english will also be spoken. I’m really curious as to how the blending of language in this artistic space will further enrich the community experience.

it’s still a work in progress

I’m still hard at work converting the space to serve a community of ceramicists, but luckily I am starting out in a really good spot, having already been producing for TAURA out of this space since January of this year. I will start taking on new members for the space from November 1st, but you can already read about the options for membership and sign up for a studio tour here.