danpaz

Handmade porcelain replicas of mass-produced institutional lunch trays. Cast from thermoform plastic trays purchased from the Bob Barker Company, the largest supplier of goods to the US prison system, each piece records the industrial original in ceramic. The first set was installed in towers, unfired and precarious. Many broke in transport and during installation. When exhibited outside the stack, the trays become modular: reconfigurable, relational, discrete — open to new arrangements. These are institutional crossover objects, bought and sold across hospitals, prisons, jails, and soup kitchens — anywhere food is served at scale. Two hands touch one tray; not long after, two more use the same object. Intergenerational and inter-institutional, they are built to endure.