Diversity

• Why propose a collection of ceramics named "Diversity"? •

With this collection of handcrafted stoneware ceramics, Elephantom.Design celebrates diversity and invites you to open yourself up to the "other".

For this collection, which represents values dear to our hearts, I use 2 clays of different colors. One brown, the other cream. One extracted in the Walloon region and the other in the Flemish region. I assemble them before putting them together on the potter's wheel. During the throwing, the 2 clays intertwine to form a spiral. They are so tolerant that they survive together even when the kiln brings them to their limits. Isn't that inspiring? 

In Europe, we live in a multicultural society. The diversity of the European population is a beautiful thing, something we can be proud of. Thanks to this cultural variety, we can make wonderful encounters and share with people from the other side of the Earth like no other generation before us. We exchange thoughts and live with people, each with family histories very different from ours.

Diversity means living together while being different in our genetics, our skin color but also in our physical appearance, our sexual preferences, the way our brain works, our culture, our disorders of all kinds - and anything else I haven't mentioned. It's not just a matter of accepting these differences and "dealing with" them, but rather a matter of exchanging thoughts in order to better understand the other person and to become more open to these differences. Diversity should be encouraged and appreciated because the world and the times in which we live give us the unique opportunity to meet so many beautiful people.

With this collection of two-tone stoneware ceramics, Elephantom invites you to open up to others and their differences, to discover their mysteries, to see people as they are, to discover, understand and accept their culture, their history and their choices. To embrace and evacuate racism. To create and move forward together to finally allow everyone to express their differences.

The duo of brown and cream colored clays come together to create a collection with dynamic patterns that will bring a touch of elegance to your interior design.

• 7 reasons to celebrate our multicultural world and to open up to it •

• It opens us to the "mysteries" that are the « others » : for almost everyone, our first experience with difference goes back to the time of the first crafts, modeling, clay,... usually in the kindergarten. And I realize that at the age of our first artistic creations, we easily welcome "the other" as being different but interesting. We are open to discover them. Children of this age ask themselves questions but they open up to mystery.
• It helps to discover cultures : being surrounded by a wide range of people of different origins but also with different personal, sexual and cultural preferences makes us aware of other ways of seeing the world. Discovering each person's history opens our minds and helps us appreciate other cultures.
• It helps us to discover people as they are : by living with people who are different from us, we gradually challenge our preconceived ideas. We need to review our stereotypes, our often mistaken assumptions about others, and learn to discover our differences, to see people as they are and not as we think they should be.
• It teaches us to accept the unknown, uncertainty and limits racism : like wolves, we are afraid of what we don't know. Ignorance leads to aggression and, in extreme cases, racism. Learning to discover different cultures helps to respect differences and prevents the emergence of racism.
• It helps in the creation of new ideas : cultural diversity allows for exchange of thought. It allows us to discuss different approaches, to confront opinions and forces us to make compromises. It’s not always easy, but it often leads to new creations that would not have existed otherwise.
• It teaches us to move forward together : we are all unique people, but we face the same great challenges such as global warming . Yes, we are all in the same boat and therefore we always have common goals!
• It allows us to express our own difference : as human beings, we have a little paradoxical side. On the one hand, for our well-being and safety, we need to mingle with others and to resemble them to form a tribe. We see this with teenagers who often tend to dress in the same way. On the other hand, we need to feel "special" in order to "exist". A little different from the others but not too much! If we live in a society that accepts difference, then we will feel freer to express our own difference.