Adi Toch on why she buries copper.

Material Matters with Grant Gibson

Adi Toch is one of the world’s most fascinating metal artists, who over the years has buried her pieces for months on end before digging them up, and even made them react to sound. She has also taken part in collaborations with furniture makers and glass artists.

Adi has work in the permanent collections of the V&A, The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, Ulster Museum in Northern Ireland, and the Jewish Museum in New York. She won a Wallpaper Magazine Design Award in 2017, and in that same year was a finalist of the Loewe Craft Prize.

She has also exhibited around the world from the FOG Design + Art fair in San Francisco with Sarah Myerscough Gallery to Make Hauser & Wirth in Somerset.

In this episode we talk about: her extraordinary studio and sharing with two other leading metal artists; the relationships she has with different metals; her creative process and her use of ‘ghosts’; why the pandemic was hugely creative; her fascination with mirrors; how metal communicates through sound and ‘screams’; burying her pieces for months; growing up in Jerusalem; getting rejected initially from design school; and how the Gaza crisis has impacted on her identity.

We’re delighted that this episode has been sponsored by the wonderful Sarah Myerscough Gallery. Established in 1998, the gallery represents a distinguished group of contemporary craft and design artists, specialising in material-led processes with a focus on wood and natural materials. It also curates a fascinating programme of exhibitions. To find out more go to: www.sarahmyerscough.com

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