Evolving from her previous bodies of work that researched the shape of the egg, Martha Rieger created her Gilded Cages project in the city of Jingdezhen, which has been China’s most established center for ceramic crafts for centuries. While moving through the city, it was impossible for Rieger not to notice the piles of damaged or unwanted blue and white ceramic shards, strewn about throughout the public sphere; in the streets, in parks, and on roundabouts.

By placing the ready-made shards in gilded iron cages shaped as eggs, Rieger showcases their previous potential of being complete. The shape of the egg, symbolizing pre-birth, is holding these broken fragments, as if protecting them from being jettisoned into the streets again. Combining the beginning and the end, and genesis and the destruction, the gilded cages frame together the beauty of the imperfect and the leftover.

This project was exhibited in
Inga Gallery of Contemporary Art in 2016
Art Space 2020, Unreliable Narrator
“Feminine Difference” Haifa Museum of Art, September 2020