The Paddocks Gallery is pleased to present CUSP, an exhibition by Bipolar Studio, a design studio founded in 2022 by Eleni Kokkoli Papadopoulou in Athens. For the designer, clay serves as her primary medium, as it is the only material that allows for direct expression of ideas and emotional release without the use of intermediaries or tools. CUSP brings together the studio’s debut collection of collectible design—a series of unique, handcrafted ceramic objects that embody Bipolar Studio’s core values, aesthetics, and perspective on urban life.
A threshold, a liminal point, a sharp edge, a boundary between surfaces, between moments—these, among other things, may be implied with the word ‘cusp’. In the dense neighbourhoods of the city, amidst cracked sidewalks, marble, and concrete, one can find fissures containing “tiny hints of wild, unruly life interrupting Athens’ solid blocks through cracks”, as the designer writes. They absorb, they bloom, they persevere.
The collection consists of nine + 1 ceramics, telling a story about the contemporary urban environment. Three objects in three variations: a lamp, a vase, and a stool—they illuminate, they contain, they support. A candelabra brings these functions together. “The collection embodies the city today in form, texture and concept in the most primitive way” adds the designer. “Climb a hill and observe this breathtakingly dense bowl of a city that all it does is essentially contain. Equally, the Acropolis on the sacred hill, and the thousands of apartment blocks spreading below it, all made out of inorganic matter, seemingly dead. Athens contains the parallel stories of four million perceiving it as the navel of the world, the stories of the obstinate ones who find the crack in the pavement and root, grow some stems, dare to bloom”.
CUSP represents both a paradoxical and familiar narrative about life’s ability to transcend and thrive even under adverse circumstances. It carries elements of a Sisyphean happiness; a reconciliation with the absurd, and a decision to live meaningfully amidst the struggles of everyday life. “The manual to survive in the most barren soil”.
