The Ripple Effect is a newly commissioned ceramic seating installation for the V&A’s garden and pond, by artist and designer Alicja Patanowska made with materials sourced from one of the largest mining waste deposits in Europe.
The seating installation, embedded with a fountain, addresses the circulation of water and matter. Partly made from mining waste from Poland, it invites reflection on our contested relationship with natural resources. The mining waste was sourced from Żelazny Most in southwest Poland – one of the largest depositories for mining waste in Europe.
The Ripple Effect refers to the knock-on impact of our daily consumption, raising questions over its long-term effect of natural resource extraction on our ecology as well as social relations. The installation is covered with 2,000 hand-made ceramic tiles, eight of which are coated with copper. This ratio poetically visualizes the complex relationship between extracted waste and the material yield in mining.