The Edit Gallery is pleased to present Carriers, a solo exhibition by Hannah Rowan featuring a new body of ceramic sculptures developed during a period of research and production in Limassol, Cyprus.

At the centre of Carriers is the act of carrying: to hold, contain, protect and nourish. Rowan’s clay torsos take the form of vessels, breastplates and protective shells, exploring the relationships between bodies and the environments they inhabit.

Drawing on pregnancy, breastfeeding and the transition into motherhood, the works incorporate references to placentas, milk ducts and the bodily structures through which nourishment and exchange take place. Across the series, human anatomy merges with botanical, fungal and marine forms: ribs become aloe vera leaves, milk ducts bloom like flowers, and branching patterns recall roots and nervous systems. Maternal experience becomes a lens through which Rowan considers a condition shared by all living beings: bodies are interdependent and continually shaped by their surroundings.

Protection and vulnerability coexist throughout the works. The sculptures evoke breastplates shaped around the female body, while the clay from which they are made is hard yet inherently fragile. Their lustrous, shell-like surfaces recall oysters, organisms that filter their environments while recording traces of the waters they inhabit.

Moving between anatomy and plant life, armour and vessel, Carriers explores what bodies hold, what they pass on, and how caring for one body is inseparable from the conditions of the world around it.

*Read the accompanying text by Anna Souter here