Sage Vouse
Brooklyn, NY
Ceramics
To see 3D scans of pieces in conjunction with their writing, please see this page.
Untitled
I Came by Trouble
Preeminent Domain
This vessel is handbuilt of a combination of red and white stoneware clays and lined with porcelain. It includes ceramic waste material from Dead Horse Bay, which holds the remains of the first desegregated housing in New York. It ultimately serves as a statement on art versus use ceramics, and natural land processes versus the hand and lifespan of myself as the artist. I draw no distinction between ceramic for use and ceramic that resists use in the name of aesthetics, and moreover feel that the difference between myself and the anonymous former owners of the ceramic waste I've collected is simply that I am currently in a position to steward it.
Timekeeper, Timeloser
Head 1
Untitled
Head 2
Head 3
Cemetery
Web
Could You Not Watch
14-hour web-based performance, 2025. A ceramic object attached to a windshield wiper motor was dragged across the floor in response to live website visitors. The motor was controlled via Arduino using a simple IoT protocol. The work addressed the gap between consuming live digital content and knowing whether it produces a real effect.
West Oakland: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow
3D web-based virtual walking tour, 2023. Documenting cycles of Black displacement and housing insecurity in West Oakland. Combining oral history, archival imagery, and forensic mapping, the project traces the actors involved in West Oakland's redevelopment through multigenerational narratives. In partnership with Moms4Housing as part of The Archive of Urban Futures.
Archive of Urban Futures
Interactive 3D archive, 2024. Documenting POC activism in Texas from the 1940s to present. Built in collaboration with a research team at the University of Texas at Austin, the archive uses a navigable cloud rather than a linear taxonomy to emphasize collective, intergenerational knowledge. Launched to accompany an Oakland Museum of California exhibit on the history of redlining and community-led stewardship.
Archiving Activism
Interactive 3D archive, 2025. Approximately one hundred source materials documenting student-led social movements. Designed for researchers, activists, and the public, the project frames activism as an ongoing communal process rather than isolated historical moments. Developed with Dr. Ashanté M. Reese and Dr. Ashley Farmer at the University of Texas at Austin.
Video
timekeeper, timeloser
2025
Process
My work toys with objectivity and impermanence via translating craft materials (specifically clay and glass) through different states of data, temporality, and destruction.
This is a 1:1 3D replica of an original ceramic work, scanned and with its data manipulated. I'll often take scans of my work to manipulate and redeploy as physical or digital objects, complicating notions of authorship and the unique nature of each of my works.