In her artistic research project, The Poetics of Containment, Pöllänen studies the processes of making through which things come into being, and the objects´ abilities to contain both on literal and metaphorical levels. By interacting with different ceramic related working environments with prescribed variable factors she explores the narrative dimensions these transitions bring forth and then reflects upon how this informs her artistic output. Comparing information from these different sites, and by situating empirical knowledge through storytelling into her practice can be seen as a part of the cognitive and contemplative process.

The produced works are a metaphorical play on the idea of a container, exploring its physical and conceptual limits. Pöllänen asks questions like what is a container? How does a container relate to storytelling, and how does site of production impacts stories?

Pauliina Pöllänen (1983, Finland) is an artist and a PhD artistic research fellow at the Department of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen. Her sculptural practice deploys tactics from the tradition of studio ceramics to suggest tactile, modernist gestures. She 
graduated 2012 with a master´s degree from the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo, and has since exhibited at the Uppsala Art Museum in Sweden, Design Museum in Finland, and at the Victoria & Albert Museum among other places.