Project 01
A Second Life for Akoya Shells: Plaster Walls
The Second Life of Akoya Shells: Shikkui Wall
ANNA DIAMOND 2025
Akoya shell, water, slaked lime, natural stone, hemp fibre, seaweed glue
Not for sale
Bring your face close to the walls of ANNA DIAMOND Gallery. You will see small fragments catching the light. We would like to call them hope for the future, but in truth they are the shells that once held pearls.
This is the second chapter of a project that gives new value to shells. After the glaze came plaster, the answer we reached in order to make use of far more shells.
Turning calcium carbonate, the main component, into pure calcium carbonate takes an enormous amount of time and care: washing, drying, grinding. We worked through it by trial and error, together with the pearl farming region and the kilns.
And at last the plaster was born. It regulates humidity, absorbs odour and resists bacteria. What once lay in the sea now holds a new role and fills the space.
Touch it, and breathe in deeply. Here is a new story, spun by something that was meant to disappear.
