This five-day course, led by visual artist Katia Terpigoreva, offers an immersion in a unique artistic practice combining textile fibers, liquid porcelain, and artisanal techniques. Through experimentation with slow, repetitive gestures, participants will learn to create sculptural forms inspired by the living world, using raw and sensory materials.

Katia's approach, somewhere between primitive art and contemporary minimalism, invites participants to work with materials intuitively, letting the natural processes of drying, firing, and tension guide the form. Each participant will create a piece at the intersection of textiles and ceramics.

At the end of the training, the intern will be able to:

• Understand liquid porcelain and its interaction with textile fibers
• Explore dipping, hanging, drying, and firing techniques
• Create and assemble organic forms from simple materials
• Develop a sensitive and experimental approach to textile sculpture
• Design a personal piece combining porcelain and knitted cordage

The objective of this training is to support each participant in creating a personal piece, both sensitive and expressive, by exploring a contemporary artistic approach that blends sculpture, craftsmanship, and natural processes.

The teaching approach is based on experimentation, freedom of exploration, and sharing. The instructor alternates between demonstrations, personalized guidance, and independent practice time. Each participant is guided in developing their own artistic approach, with a clear technical framework that leaves room for intuition, observation, and personal sensitivity.

Procedure

Day 1

Morning

• Preparation of the porcelain: liquefaction of the paste until a homogeneous mixture is obtained
• Preparation of the wool: preparation of the fibrous supports for dipping

Afternoon

• Formation of the first grains:
• 1st dipping of the wool in the liquid porcelain
• Suspension for drying
• 2nd preparation of the fibrous supports
• 2nd dipping and suspension

Day 2

Morning

• Collection of dry pieces
• Preparation of the fibrous supports for dipping
• Assembly of the porcelain grains with an airy cord, knitted with using a knitting loom

Afternoon

• Finishing the grains

Day 3

Morning

• Collection of dry pieces
• Preparation of the fibrous supports for dipping
• Dipping in liquid porcelain and suspension for drying

Afternoon

• Post-finishing the grains
• Loading the kiln and starting firing

Day 4

Morning

• Collection of dry pieces
• Post-finishing the grains
• Collection of the fired pieces
• 2nd loading of the kiln and starting firing Firing

Afternoon

• Creating a custom knitting loom
• Assembling the beads into an openwork cord with the knitting loom

Day 5

Morning

• Collecting the dry pieces
• Finalizing the assemblies
• Aesthetic and technical finishing touches

Afternoon

• Finishing the pieces and presenting them
• Tidying up the workshop

Katia Terpigoreva

An artist between matter, memory, and movement

Born in Moscow, Katia Terpigoreva began her career in journalism, working for nearly twenty years in the worlds of design, architecture, and contemporary art. But at 35, she chose a completely different path: visual art. After a stint in Italy, she settled in Aveyron, where she has lived and worked since 2010.
A self-taught artist, Katia develops a free, organic practice that escapes academic frameworks. Her approach is part of a sensory exploration of materials—porcelain, stoneware, wool, fabric, cement, and even burnt wood—which she assembles, transforms, and repurposes. She favors slow, repetitive gestures, close to craftsmanship, and allows natural processes (drying, firing, fiber tension, etc.) to contribute to the final form of the work.

Her creations evoke both plant and mineral elements, somewhere between imaginary archaeological artifacts and ritual objects. They evoke an aesthetic that is both primitive and contemporary, influenced by minimalism, Italian anti-design, brutalist architecture, and also by the silent forms of nature. Her work exhibits a constant tension between fragility and resistance, between emptiness and matter.

In parallel with her artistic practice, Katia Terpigoreva collaborates with Atelier Blanc (Villefranche-de-Rouergue), where she has presented several installations, including the remarkable Sans souci, composed of hundreds of porcelain flowers suspended in the art center's gardens.
"I am a girl without roots," she confides. Cosmopolitan and free, she creates a poetic and committed body of work, driven by a simple but essential desire: to make the world more beautiful.

• Classroom, multipurpose room, workshops with professional equipment
• Materials provided
• Individual and collaborative work
• Workshop work
• Active participation and experimentation of participants are encouraged

• Collective and personalized monitoring of work, regular updates
• Self-assessment of technical skills
• Collective feedback
• Half-day attendance sheet
• Certification of completion issued by Campus MaNa