23/04/2013

Designer’s Love For Food

It is widely known that design should concern all aspects of our lives. From the clothes we dress and the furniture we proudly furbish our houses with, to the less obvious examples like the interiors of plane cabins or medical equipment, nearly everything we touch has been designed by someone. The same goes for the food we eat, where by food we don’t only refer to the persuasive packaging that so many of the products we see on supermarket’s shelves have, but also to how the meals and the way we consume them have been cleverly designed.

Even though some designers have been dealing with food for quite some time now, in the recent months we have seen the rise of interest in the topic, with the birth of numerous magazines (Alla Carta and The Gourmand to name but a few) and specific projects considering food design.

As it goes, designers’ interest in food has taken many shapes. Starting from designing utensils and cutlery, which has formed some of the most famous design companies in the world, like the Italian Alessi, to various experiments with food design, like the ones developed by Martì Guixe. In fact, we can see Martino Gamper set up ‘designed’ dinner parties with his project Total Trattoria, where he created everything, from the tables and chairs to water jugs and glasses, from cutlery to the actual food people ate. Or designers like Marije Vogelzang creating particularly appealing ‘eating performances’ or our beloved Formafantasma create baked vessels from water and flour, taking inspiration from traditional Sicilian crafts.


In fact, this relationship, that results in some obvious and some less obvious outcomes, has been explored with an exhibition at MART, in Trento, titled “Progetto Cibo, la forma del gusto” curated by Beppe Finessi. The show explores the lasting relationship between design and food, starting from Bruno Munari’s book “Good design” and ending with contemporary projects by the aforementioned Martì Guixe and Formafantasma. In a typically Italian style, “Progetto Cibo, la forma del gusto” shows how food can be turned into a universal language, bringing together and uniting different cultures and realities helped by the clever hand of design.

“Progetto Cibo, la forma del gusto” is on display until the 2nd of June 2013 at MART, Museo di arte moderna e contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto.

Rujana Rebernjak 
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12/04/2013

Salone 2013: Studio Formafantasma

We met Simone and Andrea, authors of some of the most challenging yet exciting design projects, at Triennale di Milano in the midst of the hectic design week Salone del Mobile 2013. The duo, working under the name Formafantasma, was invited to participate in Triennale design museum’s latest exhibition called “The Syndrome of Influence”, where they were asked to interpret and play with Roberto Sambonet’s work. Even though Simone and Andrea’s work got us chatting for quite some time and there would be much more to say about them, here are a few lines that might clarify their role as one of the most promising designer brand of the future.

Could you tell us something about your project for the Triennale, “Cucina Sambonet”?

We were invited to interpret and develop the project on the work of Roberto Sambonet, who was in a way one of the last famous Italian designers. The reason why it is called Cucina Sambonet is because he designed a lot of objects for the kitchen, he was also a good cook and had a column in “Il Sole 24 ore” about cuisine and food. While the overall concept for the Triennale was very interesting, we also fell that we wanted to use this possibility to say something that goes beyond the work of Sambonet himself. We needed a fictional project where his works and drawings, drawn from his archive, could become scenographies. We worked with a movie director and an actor interpreting Sambonet, basically preparing a dish using his most famous piece within the same scenography. The text used comes from an interview he gave in 1994, where we selected some parts and kept on writing it, imagining him thinking about what would happen with design in the future. So, we are more or less making a statement on the necessity, for instance, of no longer talk about national design, while also trying to push back history, since the tendency in Italy is to keep on reviving what happened in the past.

How has this design culture influenced your work, seen that you have studied abroad?

I think you can see there is the Italian influence in most of our projects, but it is mixed with more conceptual projects related with Dutch design. We really enjoy not belonging to anything or anywhere. We always say we’re bastards, because if you put together Dutch and Italian design, it seems like nothing can come out of it or have a strong identity. That’s why we are so sick speaking about national identity or national design. It’s absolutely irrelevant.

So, let’s take a step back. How did you two meet and started working together?

We met when we were both studying at ISIA in Florence. We started to collaborate when we had a little bit of freetime because, even if ISIA was a product design school, we were interested in graphics design. We worked together on preparing our portfolios for two different schools where we wanted to continue our studies at. In the end we decided to go to Eindhoven because we could really relate to what was happening in the Netherlands. 
The story of how we got there is actually really nice, because we sent only one portfolio! Since the beginning, we applied as a team and when we came there we discovered that it was quite an exception.


What would you say is the most important characteristics of your work?
It’s critical and conceptual and not really formal. Of course it is formalized, but we don’t start by sketching a lot of shapes. That’s not the point in our work. We are really interested in the ideas and the expression of ideas and concepts through our work and not only the formal qualities of an object.

You often experiment with new or unusual materials, showing the process of your work. Why do you think it is important to also show the process of the design and not only the final product?
I think that in recent years, we displayed production, because things are produced elsewhere and you don’t know where they come from, you don’t know how they are produced. It’s a way of giving information. I think people nowadays want to be more involved and knowing where things come from and how they are produced. Showing the process is really about transparency.


You don’t work with the industry but mostly with galleries on specially commissioned projects. Do you feel this as a necessity or is it a conscious choice for you? What does this type of production allow you to do?
No, not really, because we are now, hopefully, starting to work with companies. It’s not a choice, it’s an option we investigated in the beginning. Let’s say that the way we worked until now is really much more speculative and galleries fit in much more with this type of production. Galleries are a place for discussion.

Let’s finish with your thoughts on this years Salone. Do you have any other projects displayed around Milan?
We have a couple of other projects displayed but we are more focusing on September and February when we will have two solo shows. We actually haven’t seen so much of the Salone yet, but we have a strange feeling of calmness. There is the crisis, and it’s visible. That’s nice though, because it’s not about big bold statements but about the human scale in things.


Rujana Rebernjak & Lisa Olsson Hjerpe, photos Alessandro Furchino 
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13/03/2013

Turkish Red by Formafantasma

Turkish Red by Formafantasma

There is something about certain colours that leaves us speechless. Deep blue, aquamarine, bright yellow, each colour has a profound ability to communicate a lot about both our culture as well as our history and surroundings. It is inevitable that we link certain colours to certain material artefacts, hence TextielMuseum in Tilburg has decided to dedicate an entire exhibition to Turkish Red, a particularly vibrant hue of red. The curator of the show, titled Turkish Red & More, Caroline Boot has invited five Netherlands-based designers to draw inspiration from the museum’s archives and develop a new project around what they have discovered: “the five projects are presented in a special context, together with the sources that they refer to: Art Nouveau weavings, objects from the Art Deco period, sample books, dye recipes, antique handiwork manuals, blankets and trimmings.”


The Italian duo based in The Netherlands, Formafantasma, has created a collection of 17 silk textiles titled BTMM1514 (Turkish Red), based on the archive of Driessen family and numerous samples of turkish red Felix Driessen has collected through the years.


Turkish red is drawn from madder roots, and was first developed in India and later brought to Turkey and Greece. Playing with the traditional modes of production, particular of Andrea Trimarchi‘s and Simone Farresin’s approach, they have created a series of silk textiles dyed with madder roots in collaboration with a German colourist, while the patterns were taken from the Driessen’s books, together with other visual element historically associated with Turkish red.

This apparently simple project clearly evokes the influence of colours, the Turkish red in particular, in our historical and present economic, geographical, cultural, aesthethical, social context. 
Turkish Red & More is on display until the 26th of May 2013 at TextielMuseum in Tilburg.


Rujana Rebernjak

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30/01/2013

Designers As Contemporary Artisans

Designers As Contemporary Artisans

More than 150 years have passed since William Morris, the grand English designer, writer, poet, artist and socialist, has first expressed his repugnancy towards the industry and his praise towards traditional crafts. Since the industrial revolution, designers have often discussed their position towards mass production of industrial goods in opposition to the pleasures and values of transmitted by handcrafted objects. While the period following the end of Second World War has seen designers whole-heartedly embrace technology seen as a means of cultural and social renewal, the period after the digital revolution of the nineties and fascination with everything high-tech has seen designers take a step back in the process.


While re-discussing the issues of computer aided design and digital technologies, contemporary design seems to be currently taking a different shift. Even though many areas of design are strongly engaged with new technologies, the most traditional branches of design, like furniture and industrial design, are becoming more aware of the value of craftsmanship in the design process. As Paola Antonelli states in an article published by the magazine Domus “…here we are talking about designers getting their hands really dirty, which for some also means getting their consciences clean. The loaded history of crafts is once again timely, with its antagonism towards mass production, tinged with ethical implications, coupled with new conditions in the world and in the market—from a general awareness of the environmental crisis, to the attempt to price and sell design differently to appeal to art collectors.”


Hence, we are witnessing an actual ‘revival’ of a Morris-onian approach to design. It ranges from practices like the one pursued by Martino Gamper who works almost exclusively on limited edition projects designed with the help of handy artisans and sold in high-end design galleries. A more research-oriented approach like the one of the Italian duo based in The Netherlands, Formafantasma, who use craftsmanship as a method for sourcing new materials and modes of production. To end with the Dutch designer Hella Jongerius, who applies handcrafted details to industrially produced objects and furniture.

This new generation of contemporary artisans, whether they work inside the industry or in less institutionalized spheres of design practice, use craft as a method in developing projects that reflect both on the design discipline itself, as well as on the society, mass production, economy and the way we relate to the objects we use, in a constant dialogue between past and present, awareness and sensibility.


Rujana Rebernjak

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