Trent Pehrson
The first set of pots I ever glazed
Explore the Exhibit Back About This Exhibit About the Artist
These handmade, slab-built ceramic vessels were created as concept pieces within the development of the Romulan
cultural world for the purpose of expanding the Romulan dictionary. Each jar is individually constructed and
finished with black engobe, natural clay surfaces, and hand-painted acrylic details. The geometric patterns and
symbolic markings draw from the visual language developed for Romulan, giving each vessel the appearance of an
object with a particular cultural history and purpose.
The jars are intended to hold Romulan incense, suggesting a tradition in which scent, ritual, and material objects
are connected. Their forms and decoration are not meant to represent a single established historical artifact, but
rather to explore what such objects might look like within Romulan society. The combination of repeated geometric
patterns, symbolic script, and distinct vessel forms imagines the kinds of visual conventions that might emerge
around religious, ceremonial, domestic, or institutional practices.
These pieces also serve a larger purpose in the development of the Romulan language and culture. I use artifact
design as a way of expanding the Romulan dictionary beyond isolated words, imagining the cultural, societal,
religious, and governmental traditions that give those words meaning. By creating physical objects and considering
how they might have been used, named, exchanged, displayed, or understood, the language becomes connected to a broader
lived culture. These jars are therefore both works of ceramic art and tools for exploring the world behind the language.
