CERES

Hand-built stoneware incense burners

CERES is a series of hand-built stoneware incense burners, developed between Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Lund, Sweden.

It began in 2024 as a collaboration between Yamila Palatnik and Pilo Marimón. Yamila leads the design from Auckland. Pilo develops and makes the pieces in clay; this first edition was made in Lund. The forms took shape through sketches and exchange, and changed through conversation, testing and refinement before being built by hand.

Variation is left visible: surface and proportion differ from piece to piece. Each form has a figurative presence without a fixed meaning. Every piece is stamped, numbered and made to be used.

The name echoes seres, beings in Spanish, and the dwarf planet Ceres, first used in the project as a marker of distance.

Design: Yamila Palatnik
Ceramic development & making: Pilo Marimón
Material: Stoneware
Developed between: Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand / Lund, Sweden
Edition: First edition, 17 per form
Year: 2024–
Price: CERES No.1 · $320 NZD
CERES No.2 · $360 NZD
Availability: Remaining pieces from the first edition
Delivery: Pickup in Auckland. Shipping within NZ and worldwide, quoted on request.; To buy a piece
[email protected]
Stocked by Handcrafted Modern, Auckland

CERES No.1, with smoke — **CERES No.1**
H 14 cm · Ø 5.7 cm · first edition of 17

CERES No.2 and No.1 among heather — CERES No.2 and No.1, left to right

Development, 2024–2025

Most of the development happened at a distance. Pilo built the first forms in Lund and brought them to video calls. Yamila drew corrections over photographs of each prototype, adjusting silhouette, face and proportion, and worked out how the smoke would travel through each figure.

Three early unfired forms — Early forms, August 2024

Prototype photograph with drawn corrections — Drawn corrections over a prototype, September 2024

Diagram of the smoke path through the form — Smoke path

Video call: Pilo holds a prototype in Lund while Yamila joins from Auckland — Video call between Lund and Auckland, September 2024

Prototype photograph with a hat drawn over it in Photoshop — Hat drawn over a prototype photograph, September 2024

A row of unfired No.2 forms — CERES No.2 forms before firing, September 2025

Yamila Palatnik wearing a tall wide-brim felt hat — Yamila Palatnik

The 17 and π marks stamped into the base of a piece

Marks: Yamila Palatnik
Pilo Marimón
Edition: First edition, 17 per form. Each piece is stamped and numbered.

A third CERES form, still in development — **Form in development**

CERES No.1 · $320 NZD
CERES No.2 · $360 NZDTo buy a piece
[email protected]
Stocked by Handcrafted Modern, Auckland