Beate Kuhn Research

- An important German ceramic artist who is known internationally for her work.

- Made her name with her avant-garde works of organic structural forms, and then went on to make fantasy porcelain animals, with wheel thrown body parts.

Looking upon the city of Sendsel from afar on the cliffs, it would appear the rocky outcrops are somehow miraculously floating on the surface of thesea, bridges strung about to keep the many sections from drifting apart. You reach Sendsel by small wooden boat. It is the only way inhabitants andvisitors can cross from land to the city, to swim it would be too far, and larger boats would catch and hulls be breached on the city's foundations justbelow the water level. Once rowing out to see, looking down to the water below, it now seems as though how the city has come to be completelyjuxtaposes as it seemed before, as if, instead of floating, the entire mass is sunk into the sea, to be inhabited by fish, with only the very tips breachingthe ocean waves. However, neither of these situations are true. The city you see below is the city that has not yet been inhabited, the city that willone day rise up out of the ocean as the current structures have, pushed up from below by the ever growing tremendous coral reef that lines theocean bed, to be carved and hollowed into the new buildings of Sendsel.

You alight on one of the smaller coral islands that serves as a dock for the boats from the mainland. A nearby dock-man hurries over to help tetherthe rope to one of the many dry rocky outcrops that run the edge of the platform, hewn from the long ago calcified colossal creature. The city aheadof you is chalky and matte, but its brightness still strains the eye and you wince at the light bouncing from the coral forms and its reflection glinting inthe crystal water. The once vibrant colours of the reef now light and pastel, bleached by the sun over the years of standing proud of the nourishingseawater.

The city's mass is comprised of many coral outcrops, breaching the surface of the water for miles around, each one differing in spread and height tothe next, and all interlinked by networks of roads and bridges, some held up on struts built upon the rocky foundations not far below the surface,others hewn from arms of inter crossing corals, with driftwood and seaweed suspension bridges creating pathways in the higher levels of the city,precariously strapped and tacked into the hollow structures.The city is packed, busy and bustling. From afar the quick, scurrying movements of the inhabitants trying to avoid the burning glare, dipping in andout of the shadows, create illusions in their brightly coloured clothes, as is the fashion, of the fish that once inhabited the coral years ago, metersbelow. The inhabitants are rarely seen in entirety, as despite dressing brightly, this is to bring colour to their faded city, they themselves howeverprefer to stay out of the light, preserving their pale skin from the scorching suns' glare and heat.

You descend into the city of coral husks, the buildings growing larger and more close knit the further you go. Every inch of the exposed calciumcarbonate skeleton of the miniature creatures that built it is put to some use or another, buildings in all shapes and sizes, towering pillars of off-white in the midday sun. On the larger islands buildings are stacked high one atop the other, different forms flaring out and fighting for space. Thesea level streets are thin and winding, shadows are thankfully cast in most places, even in the height of the day, shielded from the burning sun bythe great splays of flat growing coral that now serve as high above walkways, balconies and roofs. The buildings are created from these rocky formsthrough the chiselling of doorways and windows into the thick coral exoskeleton. It is not uncommon to see a new doorway or pathway being hewninto the side of a structure by a troupe of workmen, Sendsel is constantly evolving, the inhabitants endeavouring to find new ways to get aroundthe multi-levelled city more efficiently, creating a mass of interweaving pathways across the levels. Sometimes spiral staircases line the outside ofcolumns too thin to be hollows for houses, with driftwood banisters to keep the unwary from falling in some cases many storeys down to the hardrock below. Despite their obvious skill with a pickaxe and chisel, decorative stone carving work is uncommon in Sendsel. The inhabitants areunwilling to exert themselves too strenuously in the heat of day for a work they know will be worn away by the constant battering of the elements,heavy rain downpours, when they come, wind and waves. Because of this the windows of most buildings are small and square, with driftwoodshutters to keep out the sun in the day and protect from the harshness of the elements in the case of a tropical storm, when large waves comecrashing down on the thankfully sound city, and anything not protected within the strong, rocky city walls or firmly secured is washed away to sea.This however starkly juxtaposes the curving, natural shapes of many of the buildings, the only clue as to them once being very much alive, despiteappearing as no more than rock now.

The inhabitants of Sendsel put to use any and all materials they collect and scavenge from the ocean and that wash up at the edges of the city. Themarketplace stalls boast roofs of large clam shells, dredged from the ocean floor in search of pearls and other treasures. Driftwood and dried,woven seaweed are staple building materials used throughout the city, forming all kinds of items, from the slats and ropes of the bridges stretchedbetween buildings high above, to the woven baskets of shrimp and small fish being sold in the marketplace. Lamps made of dried "mermaidpurses", shark eggs, and puffer fish are dotted all around the city, providing light in the shadows where the moon cannot reach at night. They hangfrom roofs and are strung along the bridges and the smaller, more decorative coral columns, sometimes fondly referred to as trees by the locals,due to the clusters of dried mussel shells adorning their tops, like dark , petrified leaves. Occasionally you will see small, brightly coloured flowersbrought over from the mainland blooming in the hollow vessels of the huge barnacles that encrust large areas of the city. These are not only boughthere for their colour in this stark city, but also for their fragrance, the efforts of the inhabitants wishing to muffle the overpowering smell of salt andfish, unavoidable almost due to the thin crumbling sodium chloride crust covering nearly every surface, always brought back through evaporationof the ocean spray.