About atelier
The unpredictability of the process as a key determinant in design.

01
Božica Marukić
Božica Marukić's work navigates the thin line between craft, design, and art, exploring their interactions and creating objects with a strong dedication to materiality.
She completed a Master's degree in Product Design at the School of Design of the Faculty of Architecture in Zagreb. In her professional work outside of her atelier, she explores various materials and is particularly dedicated to furniture design and interior decoration. In 2020, she began working with clay, and in 2024, she opened an atelier where clay becomes the starting point for various experimental and functional activities.


02
Area of focus / Hands at work
Due to a strong foundation in materiality and a preference for traditional, handcrafted approaches to every material, one could say that object design is the primary area of focus for the atelier. However, materiality also serves as a basis for concepts related to interior design, art exhibitions or experimental projects like Našagama. The atelier is, above all, a space of exploration that always starts from the hands - from the material in hand, moving from the tangible to the intangible, the conceptual or yet unexplored. 


03
Process /
Hands in the Soil
Hands in the Soil
Before it evolves into a strong, authentic form, every idea seeks its corresponding material. It looks for its color or colors and a unique tactile sensation. For this reason, almost every design process is preceded by a visit to nature or the selection from a collection of various gathered materials in the atelier—which already resembles a small natural history museum. Only then does the process of shaping raw material follow, which is both lengthy and unpredictable. However, the durability is negligible compared to the thousands, sometimes millions of years that nature takes to create the materials used. This hard-to-grasp transience of time is embodied in every object. It gives it value and an almost gravitational pull.




04
Design /
Hands that create
Hands that create
To work with clay, one must understand the craft. To choose the right form, one must understand design. For an object to attain artistic value, one must recognize and attempt to capture the elusive. Art in clay shaping is often not planned; it emerges spontaneously when the space of unpredictability is valued equally with the space of intention. Mistakes, unpredictable material behaviors, and sometimes even damage bring about true magic, which simply needs to be noticed.


