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Studio Eidola

A material practice, investigating resource systems and material agency. Scroll down to see what we do. 

Workshop2026  Exit Lounge: Rehearsing the post-coal

 Zeitz sits within the Central German lignite district, a territory whose landscapes, labor histories, and infrastructures have long been organized around extraction. While Germany has committed to a coal phase-out by 2038, the transition remains extended in both material and political terms. Structural change funding continues to 2038, and the promise of exit is repeatedly stretched by questions of energy security, regional development, and the slow afterlife of mining itself.

This workshop approaches that suspended moment through material. Participants built an exit lounge: a temporary structure for rehearsing the departure from coal, a future memorial.  

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Type: Workshop, summercamp
Material: Clay, brown coal as pigment, reused aggregates
Process: Running mold

Summercamp was organized by Reallabor ZEKIWA Zeitz.

Video by Simon Jaramillo Vallejo.
Residency2025  Is The Dam High Enough?
For millenia, the Nile River sustained a cyclical relationship between water, land, and material practice through the seasonal movement of silt. With the construction of the Aswan High Dam beginning in 1960, this circulation was progressively interrupted, and Nile sediment shifted from a renewable material to an infrastructural by-product. 

This project explores that transformation through material processes. Working with Nile mud in a liquid state, sediment is poured onto sand, trapped, and allowed to dry, producing forms shaped by containment and variation. Alongside these fragments, material samples and collected clay objects trace contemporary practices of substitution, extraction, and standardization. Together, the work reflects on how large-scale infrastructure reshapes landscapes while reconfiguring material practices, circulation, and the cultural meanings attached to matter.

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Type: Residency, material research
Material: Nile silt
Process: Slip casting on sand, kiln-firing

Supported by Pro Helvetia Cairo.

Solo exhibition2025Synthetic Geologies
Synthetic Geologies explores cement as a medium in flux—one whose existence is shaped by the acceleration of deep time into industrial time, where stone is extracted, calcined, and recombined into synthetic rock formations that mimic yet diverge from their geological origins.

At what point does a material cease to be "natural" and become "synthetic"? Cement, as a reconstituted form of limestone and clay, embodies this ambiguity, existing both as a product of the earth and an artifact of human engineering. By recontextualizing cement, the exhibition disrupts its conventional anonymity, positioning it as an active site of material memory and human geological agency.

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Type: Solo exhibition
Material: Cement clinker, limestone, steel balls, fire-resistant textile
Process: Accelerated lithification

Supported by MAGAZIN. Space for contemporary architecture.
Exhibited in MAGAZIN. Rembrandtstraße 14/1A, 1020 Vienna, Austria.

Photo 1: Simon Veres
Photo 2, 3, 4: Studio Eidola
Product2024Incurved Terrains
Incurved Terrains studies discarded gravel quarry silt through hybrid casting techniques combining sand and slip casting. Fine silt, poured onto sand molds, reacts to slow drying by forming natural incurved shapes. These warped forms, preserved through kiln-firing, reveal how residual materials can self-organize into structure, shaped by the material’s own internal tensions and drying behavior.

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Type: Product
Material: Gravel washing fines (by-product)
Process: Slip casting on sand, and kiln-firing

A series of plates were produced for Steinbeisser event in Goetheanum Basel.

Sculpture2024Dripped Dreams
Dripped Dreams is a site-specific installation which draws its conceptual and methodological inspiration from the natural phenomena of stalagmite formations. The project reinterprets traditional sand-casting method through a process of deliberate, contemplative dripping. It was shown in Alcova space as part of Milan Design Week 2024. 

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Type: Site-specific installation
Material: Concrete-reject sand (by-product), recycled tinware, plant-based binder
Process: Sand-casting, dripping

The installation was shown in Alcova space in the garden of Villa Bagatti Alsecchi during Milan Design Week 2024. 

Product2023Tectonic Dusts
Tectonic Dusts is an exploration into the residual by-products resulting from stone quarrying and processing in Vals, Switzerland, with a particular focus on quartzite. The journey of stone, from quarry to final product, involves numerous processing steps, each contributing to the volume of discarded material. While some offcuts could potentially be repurposed and are not environmentally detrimental when landfilled, a significant portion of the waste consists of cutting and grinding dust. This dust, characterised by its fine granularity and potential contamination, requires specialised handling.

In this initiative, an approach to repurpose stone processing waste into building materials, ranging from bricks to tiles, is proposed.

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Type: Product, material research
Material: Stone manufacturing dust (by-product)
Process: Handpressing and kiln-firing

Thank you Truffer AG for the support.

The project received a Swiss Design Award in 2024 in the product design category. 
Outdoor installation2023Liminal Sediments
Liminal Sediments explores the characteristics of gravel quarry waste, examining its potential uses and applications through the process of extruding bricks. Celebrating the transitional and in-between stages in the material development process, the project aims to challenge the conventional notion of what constitutes a valuable resource. 

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Type: Outdoor installation
Material: Gravel washing fines (by-product)
Process: Extrusion and kiln-firing

Thank you Montalta Gruppe for the support. 

The project was exhibited as part of the Design Biennale Zürich 2023 in Alte Botanischer Garten. 
Research trip2023Karshif Chronicles
Born from our research trip in Siwa-Egypt, Karshif Chronicles unfolds as an investigation of materiality and the intimate relationship between land, culture, and human endeavours. As we immersed ourselves into the salty oasis, we embarked on an exploration of karshif—a naturally grown conglomerate intricately woven into the very essence of Siwa's landscape.

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Type: Research trip, sculpture
Material: Karshif, a naturally occuring salt and clay composite (by-product)
Process: Chiselling, sculpting

Siwa Oasis -Western Sahara - EGY

The project and research trip was supported by Pro Helvetia Cairo.
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8052 Zürich - Switzerland
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