About Anna Tou
With a foundation in Applied Arts, Anna Tou deepened her creative practice through Crafts Arts studies in calligraphy and typography at the École Estienne in Paris. In 2009, she moved to Brussels, where she founded a graphic design studio specialising in lettering and visual identity, working closely with publishing houses and design agencies.
While working as an art director in Toronto in 2016, she discovered the captivating world of ceramics, a turning point that sparked a new artistic path. Back in Belgium two years later, she trained for several years alongside professional ceramicists and continued her education at the Brussels Academy of Arts. In 2022, Anna opened her own ceramic studio in Forest, where she now creates tableware collections and develops collectible objects.
Photo @ Lucile Dizier
Since 2024, Anna has been a member of BeCraft, the representatives of Applied Crafts of Belgium. She has also been part of the Homo Faber Guide community since 2025, and of the Belgian ceramists' association ArtBol.
Between design and ceramic
Since September 2024, Anna Tou has been an artist-in-residence at MAD Brussels the Fashion and Design center of Brussels. During this two-year residency, she is developing a dedicated collection of collectible pieces, including lamps, mirrors, vases, and furniture. Her approach explores ancestral techniques, artisanal processes, and the prototyping of objects conceived for contemporary design.
Anna is passionate about celebrating the art of ceramics, honoring both its traditions and contemporary innovations. She oversees the space with a thoughtful and dedicated vision. Deeply engaged in her approach, she bridges the worlds of design and craftsmanship.
In her practice
A collector and scavenger of unusual tools, Anna draws inspiration from archaic objects to create contemporary collections that reflect organic, living forms shaped by hand in a gentle, slow process. She enjoys exploring material and the unexpected — anything that contributes to making an object unique and precious. Each piece features variations in texture, relief, and dimension. As a result, no two pieces are ever the same.
In her work, Anna merges ancestral techniques of ceramics and tattooing — body art dating as far back as 3200 BC. She shapes and marks the clay as one would mark skin, creating pieces imbued with our collective memory and resonating with ancient rituals. Her background in calligraphy resurfaces in the linear work that highlights the seams of her pieces. Anna tattoos the skin of the earth, blurring the line between craftsmanship and the human body.
Stories of textures and living matter, stories of movement and falls, stories of mysterious interiors and undefined organs. A creative process centered on experimentation and the enhancement of imperfections. Allowing forms to emerge through modeling, the constraints of clay, and firing. Her practice generates its own shapes, which in turn create reproductible imaginaries.