REPAIRING THE SELF: MATERIAL MEMORY, SUSTAINABILITY AND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL IDENTITY IN CONTEMPORARY CERAMIC ART

Abstract

This article examines contemporary ceramic art as a site of autobiographical self-narration articulated through material memory, repair practices, and an emerging ethics of material sustainability. Moving beyond text-centered models of autobiography, it argues that ceramic materiality, particularly processes of breakage, fragmentation, and visible mending, functions as a non-textual mode of autobiographical expression. Rather than treating repair as a purely technical intervention, the study conceptualizes it as a narrative and material framework through which identity is constructed as fractured, contingent, and continually reassembled. Drawing on theories of narrative identity, material memory, and material agency, the article positions ceramic and porcelain materials as active narrative agents whose fragility enables memory to be registered through damage and repair while foregrounding questions of responsibility and sustainability. Through analyses of selected contemporary ceramic practices and a reflexive yet non-confessional engagement with artistic process, it demonstrates how visible seams and deliberate imperfections materialize lived experience and identity formation. By foregrounding repair as both a narrative and ethical strategy, the article expands auto/biography studies beyond textual paradigms and proposes the repaired self as a productive model of autobiographical identity grounded in material awareness, sustainability, and ongoing reconstruction.