BY TAMSIN VON ESSEN, FROM MEDICAL HEIRLOOMS SERIES

Medical Heirlooms is a series by the celebrated ceramicist Tamsin Von Essen, the series explores the stigma of diseases, questioning contemporary obsessions with perfection and beauty.  She uses the medium to emulate the scars and damage inflicted on the body by disease and deliberately encourages 'faults', 'defects' and 'blemishes.'  The forms of the vases are based on 17th and 18th Century Apothecary jars.