Agnė Kučerenkaitė

Ceramicist

©Bas Muda

©Agnė Kučerenkaitė

A new identity to waste

Agnė views design as never ending research
She enjoys experimenting with ceramics
She tries to connect design, society and the environment

Agnė Kučerenkaitė is a material designer from Vilnius, Lithuania, who graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven and is currently based in the Netherlands. Agnė enjoys working with raw materials and waste, transforming them into valuable products, methods and systems. Her work seeks to find an interaction between design, society, industry and the environment. Her design process is characterised by in-depth research, an experimental approach and hands-on practice, informed by historical and sociocultural contexts. Agnė uses ceramics as a medium for the majority of her projects. Ceramics leaves a lot of space for endless experimentation, which leads to her small and large-scale designs.

Interview

©Bas Muda

©Agnė Kučerenkaitė

How would you define what you do?: Giving a new identity to waste. I am confident of my role to recover the value of a currently ‘worthless’ and even toxic waste in a functional, process-efficient and scalable way, while challenging the mass manufacturing of industrial pigments.
How do you express tradition and innovation in your work?: The abundance and prevalence of waste and by-products allow for extensive exploration and experimentation. As a result of thorough research, such salvaged materials are repurposed into interior and exterior products of high quality and value.
What are your sources of inspiration?: I discovered my role as a social and material designer and I have the urge to continue with an analytical and experimental design methodology. It is exactly the technical investigation and design potential of these seemingly unattractive and industrially driven processes that I find to be the most interesting source that influences my work.
What is your biggest achievement?: My biggest achievement is the Red Dot Award, Best of the Best Product Design 2020 for a ceramic tiles collection. Ignorance is Bliss ceramic tiles are glazed using pigments solely derived from industrial metal waste and by-products. I felt extremely proud seeing my name next to Apple, Ferrari and Lenovo.

Agnė Kučerenkaitė is an expert artisan: she began her career in 2012