The Tea-Globe-Pot aka the teapot Projection
Why the Raven like a writing desk? Or why the teapot like a globe, in a less nonsense mind.
The higher, the fewer, of course, have another cup of tea. The Raven is all black with a large bill, while the other is a Bureau with a quill
The time he/him is stuck
take some more tea, the March hair said to Alice very earnestly. I have nothing yet, Alice replied in an offended tone, so I can't have more.
You mean you can't take less said the Hatter. It's very easy to take more than nothing.
“Why they Raven like a writing desk?” Asked the Hatter. “I give up. What's the answer?” Alice replied. “I haven't the slightest idea,” said the Hatter. “Nor I,” said the March hare. Alice signed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the time,” she said, “than wasting it in asking riddles that hadve no answers”. “If you knew time as well as I do,” said the Hatter, “you wouldn't talk about wasting it. It's Him.”
It's always tea time, and we have no time to wash things between whiles.
It's always 6:00 PM here. The time is stuck
At first glance, this teapot might seem like a whimsical representation of planet Earth. However, I would like us to start imagining its alternate stories. What enters and what flows out of it? What it holds, and for how long? What does it hide, and where does it stretch? Let's see this teapot as a material, a narrative tool, embodying the tension between pole to pole, sea to land, and lead to handle.
The time he/him is stuck
Emotionally, the teapot might evoke a sense of warmth and comfort, which contrasts sharply with the harsh realities of the Arctic, which is our main focus in this case. From the objectivity of the teapot to its profound symbolism of human experience, my first story focuses on the modern object of the teapot as a subjective reading.
So, we agree! The teapot is more than an object; it's a metaphor, a distorted representation of emotions and states. States of comfort, solitude, connection, resilience. The light blue oceans and pale beige lands that wrap around its curved surface evoke a sense of serenity, yet they also remind us of the earth's vastness. The pot's proboscis, cradling Asia, speaks to the ancient histories and futures that pour forth from the East. While the handle grasping the Americas bridges a global North the South, it could reflect the weight of modernity and connections, globalisation, colonisation and many more -ations.
The lid embodying the Arctic, in its entirety, is the teapot's precious element, the only piece that can detach. The Arctic's place in the face of climate change, which is “always at risk”, “breaking away from the world as we know it”, and don’t forget “the last frontier. Once lifted, the lid will say, "This teapot is not getting any colder"—clearly a metaphor.
A teapot is designed to hold warm liquids. However, this particular pot, representing the world, indicates a counterintuitive anomaly; it is meant to get colder, yet it isn't.
And beneath it all, at the base, hidden until the teapot is lifted, lies Antarctica—a silent, icy Sentinel, observing from a great distance.
This more-than-object teapot transcends its role as a mere vessel of brewed leaves, becoming a subjective canvas on which geography, emotion, and existential reflection converge.
The time he/him is stuck
My next story is about the brew, it is so very bitter. It will be bitter as bitter events have happened and will be happening and are happening. This brew has strong tastes but also invisible, untouchable ones. The island I call home is too small to appear in the teapot, though once upon a time, it felt as if it was the whole world.
It is a rather complex brew. Feeling and pouring, drinking and moving, time is stuck here, more tea dear? Said the Hatter.
Did you know that the universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old? Human existence is about 0.000000000054% of the universe's time.
Scale distorted, projections and fitted
No data reported, information admitted
Coastlines exported, tides omitted
Fees are transported, trees transmitted
Mission aborted, the earth is tilted.
My final story is about thinking, thinking through practice. Underneath the paint and glaze are many notes and calculations, felt markers guiding me through latitudes and longitudes. These notes got lost in the kiln. They did their job.
My initial motivation was very simple. I love a good teapot, and I have a slight obsession with maps, atlases, and, of course… globes. So I had to make a tea globe pot. I felt the pressure of tradition (western I suppose) to put the North Pole up, the South at the bottom. Placing the grid lines was a very long challenge, but it was accomplished after trial and error. As it happens, the Arctic and some Subarctic lie on the lid. The North Pole happens to be on the handle of the lid. I draw it icy white to ensure there is some sea ice on the pot. I also wanted to keep it visually simple. Hence, the land is beige, and the ocean is light blue, even if that's not “the truth”.
The time he/him is stuck
Imagining through practice. I envisioned this teapot as a vessel where Pandora could keep any source of great and unexpected troubles. As you can see, it can constantly leak. A gift that appears valuable but, in reality, is a curse. I thought of flowing/melting/changing waters, lands hiding behind grid lines, forgotten continents… And what about the inside? Is the clay the crust and the tea the mantle? Are our stories the core, and the warmth is to be ignored? Is the sea to explore and the spout in Lahore? Is the lid too cold and the handle along the shore?
Why the Raven like the writing desk? Why the squirrel like the ice cube? Why the map like the cloud? Why the lines like the water?
Is the time he/him stuck, οr the space she/her?
This essay was produced as part of a session at the 2024 Royal Geographic Society conference in London, in the panel “Polar Projections, Political Geographies of Arctic Mapping” chaired by Ingrid Agnete Medby
Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective, Donna Haraway https://www.jstor.org/stable/3178066
Questions of uncertainty in geography
https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518X17718838
Hand, Brain, and Heart: A Feminist Epistemology for the Natural Sciences, Hilary Rose https://www.jstor.org/stable/3173664
Creative Methods for Human Geographers
https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/creative-methods-for-human-geographers/book266074
Glaciers, gender, and science: A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental change research
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0309132515623368
Gender on Ice. American Ideologies of Polar Expeditions, Lisa Bloom
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Gender_on_Ice/UKukLJl0YMsC?hl=en&gbpv=0
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11-h/11-h.htm
