ABOUT
HAN Lab is a ceramic practice centered on everyday use, Korean ceramic traditions, and objects as records.
HAN LAB
HAN Lab is a ceramics practice exploring how functional use, personal memory, and material observations can be held in clay. More than a fixed collection of finished works, it is a studio notebook: a place to make, test, adjust, and record the questions that come up through the process of working with clay.
The work follows questions as they take shape through making. Some begin with everyday function, some with Korean forms and materials, and others with surface, weight, glaze, or simple curiosity. Across these different directions, HAN Lab is a place for recording how ideas become objects, how objects become useful, and how clay carries the marks of process over time.
THE ARTIST
Byeongchan Lim
HAN Lab is the ceramics practice of Byeongchan Lim, based in Chicago. My work is shaped by a curiosity about how small decisions can change the way an object is held, used, and understood.
I studied molecular biology before returning to clay more intentionally, and that background still shapes the way I think through ceramics. I often begin by breaking a question down into its simplest parts: What is a cup? What is the purpose of a handle? How should a cup rest in the hand? As those pieces come back together, they begin to take shape as form, function, and story. Through HAN Lab, I make and record ceramics as a way of understanding objects through use, memory, and process.