This summer, we had the opportunity to become part of "Continuum" — a video work exploring materials, creative processes, and the relationships we form with matter.

Aleksandra and Julia Powalacz turned their attention to our practice, the local materials we work with, and the places from which we draw both our resources and inspiration. The surrounding landscape, its natural resources, and our experience of being connected to this place are important points of reference for our work with clay and our approach to making ceramics.

The film centres on the materials present throughout the exhibition "The Matter of Earth": glass, wood, clay, aluminium, and wool. Through close-up images, these familiar substances gradually lose their recognisable forms and assigned functions. Fibres, grains, fissures, reflections, and porous surfaces emerge as shifting landscapes in their own right. Rather than simply depicting materials, the film invites us to encounter them differently — through their textures, structures, and subtle transformations.

Moving between surface and depth, "Continuum" transforms looking into an experience of immersion. Each material carries traces of processes that began long before it became part of an artwork: growth and extraction, exposure to heat and moisture, pressure, and human labour. These forces leave their marks on matter, shaping its structure over time. The film draws attention to this ongoing process, in which material is never entirely still, but remains subject to change.

Touch becomes a way of encountering these transformations. The hand meets the temperature, weight, texture, and resistance of a material, while also responding to the conditions it presents. It does not initiate change so much as enter into a process already underway — one shaped by natural forces, time, and previous encounters.

Within this perspective, matter is not treated as a passive substance or a stable foundation for the finished object. It becomes an archive of forces and a record of time, holding traces of growth, erosion, extraction, use, and return. What appears permanent is only a temporary arrangement within longer cycles of transformation. The artwork, in this sense, does not begin with the shaping of a material; it is already part of the material's ongoing history.

This way of looking at matter resonates with our own practice at Huba Studio. Working with local clays, wood ash, and other materials gathered from the surrounding landscape, we approach ceramics as a process shaped by the place from which it emerges. Firing, in particular, brings together material, heat, time, and chance, leaving traces that cannot be entirely predicted or controlled. Each object carries evidence of these encounters — with the earth, the fire, and the conditions of its making.

For the Powalacz sisters, moving image and sound become forms of attention to what matter holds and transmits. Through the interplay of image, sound, and material detail, "Continuum" opens a space to consider the relationships between human activity and the material world, and to recognise the longer processes that continue beyond the moment an object takes form.

The film was presented during Paris Design Week 2026 as part of the exhibition "The Matter of Earth", a project exploring our relationship with the earth and the materials that connect us to place.

We are delighted that our practice has become part of this multifaceted exploration of matter, time, and continuous transformation.

Camera — Stanisław Skonieczny
Editing — Zuza Grabowska
Sound — Mateusz Ogma
Colour — Emil Wolna
Coordination — Zuza Słupińska

Featuring — Agnieszka Owsiany and FORMSOPHY

Organisers
Visteria Foundation 
Institut Polonais de Paris 

Curators
Eleonora Bojanowska
Bartosz Brylewski