THE PRECIOUS

Porcelain Worlds – Exhibition on Porcelain

Client: Leuchtenburg Foundation
Location: Seitenroda, Thuringia, Germany
Date: 2010-2014

In the context of the Porcelain Worlds exhibition in the Leuchtenburg castle, Nau2 designed a series of spaces highlighting how porcelain, or “white gold” as it was called, became tied to demonstrations of wealth, power, and increasingly elaborate dining rituals during the baroque period. Simultaneously an object of beauty and tool of social differentiation, porcelain was so rare in 18th century Europe that it was more costly than equivalent table settings in silver, and was only fit for the nobility to dine from.

Working with Tamschick Media+Space, Nau2 recreated the pomp and drama of the baroque feast with a media table, onto which the highly choreographed act of setting the table and serving noble guests is projected. In a separate room, a so-called porcelain chamber is abstractly recreated with an atmospheric lighting installation. These chambers were ostentatious display rooms where entire wall surfaces were layered with porcelain. Fittingly, the following space contrasts the wares from which the common man ate at the time, with walls clad in lowly tin.

Project Partners:
– Anne Meinzenbach, Seitenroda
– Tamschick Media, Berlin

Photographs:
© Nau2
© Anne Meinzenbach