Design students from the weissensee academy of arts Berlin and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (KADK) in Copenhagen were invited by the Museum of Decorative Arts in Pillnitz Palace to spend a semester exploring how objects made of porcelain, ceramic and glass can trigger, support and influence communication at the table.

What do objects have to be like that can bring conversation to the table? Can the conversation be steered in a direction? How can relevant topics brought into play? Explicitly through spectacular installations or casually through the eating and drinking vessels themselves and the sensory perceptions of their use?

Baroque tables were adorned with centrepieces, also called “conversation pieces”. Such a “conversation piece” is by no means pure decoration, but according to the definition of the Cambridge English Dictionary “an unusual object that causes people to start talking”.

The results of the project, from functional objects to material experiments to installations, now fit into the big picture of a spatial staging in two historical rooms, the Watteau Room and the Yellow Tea Room, in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Pillnitz Palace. They are presented in such a way that they communicate with each other as well as with the space and create an exciting dialogue.

Together with the students I developed the staging and exhibition of the objects, directed the construction and we worked out the prototype up to the realisation in the rooms.