Isabel Ferrand

The Learning Hand

‘On the Memory of the Hands’ is the title of my master research at the Sandberg Institute 2013–15, where I analysed processes of making, as (if) seen from the perspective of the hand(s). For the first outcome I had set up a scientifically informed research project related to the question of how my hands are able to learn a new craft. I chose wheel throwing on the potter’s wheel, as I had never done before.

Multiple layerd learning process

The final work consisted of a multimedia installation in which I showed and let insiders reflect upon the multiple layers of the usually opaque learning process. The thesis show was made in three parts:

  1. 105 Attempts at Throwing a Pot (ceramics installation).
  2. Wheel Throwing by Heart (a short film).
  3. On the Memory of the Hands (the first instalment of which is a 20 minute long, two-screen documentary film, that includes interviews with a potter, a philosopher and a neuroscientist about the unreflected knowledge of the hands).

These three works are in the collection of Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

In the documentary, ‘On the Memory of the Hands’, that can be seen as the written thesis, some of the research questions I mentioned earlier acquire new meaning and direction by how they are reframed or answered by the three experts. Philosopher Erik Rietveld (Cofounder of RAAAF) from the University of Amsterdam, who was fundamental in providing scientific context to my research, introduced me to scientific concepts and fields of research related to my quest. Rietveld studies skilful actions we perform intuitively in daily life, based on the so-called ‘affordances theory’. Through Rietveld I met scientists who collaborate with artists in their investigating and experimenting on the edges of their field of study.

R. Ridderinkhof, UVA, gives neuro-scientific explanations to the actions of the hands. His observations and contributions have been and continues to be a productive source for new works, When Shape Becomes Form (2016) and The Archive of Genetics (2018) .