The Third Colosseum

The Third Colosseum is a large-scale modular installation composed of 360 slip-cast ceramic bricks arranged into three freestanding semicircular structures. Their curved forms may recall ruined amphitheatres or fragments of ancient civic architecture, yet the work is not centred on destruction. Instead, it transforms the image of the ruin into a proposition for rebuilding, gathering, and the shared construction of peace.

The title imagines a new colosseum beyond the historical models of spectacle and violence. This third form is not an arena for conflict, but an open structure shaped by relation, movement, and collective presence. Its incomplete circles resist enclosure, allowing viewers to move between the forms and experience the installation as a permeable spatial field rather than a closed monument.

The bricks were developed through sustained processes of mould making, slip casting, clay reclamation, glazing, and repeated firing. Their varied surfaces retain traces of experimentation, pressure, and transformation. Some incorporate iron-rich soil from Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, embedding material memory and geographical connection within the structure.

Although the installation carries visual echoes of architectural remains, its primary gesture is constructive. Each brick contributes to a larger whole while retaining its individual character. Through repetition, accumulation, and modular growth, the work approaches peace not as a passive absence of violence, but as a fragile structure that must be continually built, supported, and reconfigured through shared responsibility.