Exhibitions piece together ideas into spaces. But there is a catch: there are always two key limitations – spatial and economic.

Since 2019 Extraperlo brings together groups of people, usually friends or friends of friends, in form of *something in a shoebox* for the exhibition. The medium setting the limitation for Extraperlo is the ubiquitous shoebox – the most commonly used item for shipping. Standard size: 33 x 19 cm. What can fit inside that box? The requested *something* can be anything — an experiment, a work-in-progress or a fully-finished piece, as long as it sits at the €1 – €500 price point.

Don’t be mistaken, the initiative is not motivated by money, instead it is motivated by: subverting ideas through bringing together a selection of people, exploring the life that lies in the shadow economy and representing a group, and its secrets, which eventually constitutes a network of thought.

In 2023, for its 5th and final edition, Extraperlo presents 40 cardboxes –– one for each of its previous participants. Together, they help visualise, map, but also reshuffle, the connections between the members of this group. The cardboxes are assembled in a giant walk-in box for visitors to enter. The shoebox is a space of mystery, a clandestine spot where we hide our deepest secrets, unfulfilled projects and our finest discoveries.

For its last dance Extraperlo continues to stand for the *something* inside — a limited room for magic.

Biography —

Matylda Krzykowski works with space: objects within space and ideas outside of space. Her work has pulled peripheral threads into the centre, and has cast new light on ideas at the centre of the discourses she nourishes. Although these discourses cannot be reduced to conventional spheres of operation, they could broadly be identified as curation, design, architecture, art, hosting and performance.

Krzykowski seeks to instigate conversations, works to maintain their energy, and thereby affects results. These results are almost always entirely born from intense and generous collaboration. Her work has resonated globally. Krzykowski is organically interdisciplinary. (It’s a way of doing, rather than a way of thinking.) The tools she deploys include, but are not limited to: speech, instant messaging, archiving [see: Online Depot], art direction, theatre and performance [see: Design Date], scenography and choreography [see: Total Space], reportage [see: Things Might] and digital space treated as physical space [see: Desktop Exhibition]. The communication vehicles she employs include the exhibition, the intervention, the public talk, and Instagram, to name a few. Krzykowski travels widely to develop formats, participate in juries, to give lectures, curate exhibitions, and to conceive and deliver workshops in the cultural field. Wherever she may be, she sees the visible and reformats the unseen.

The objective of this new edition is to show the hidden faces of the design industry. The idea is not only to reveal what lies behind the practice of the leading offices around the globe but also to give voice to those who, very often, are not in the spot light.

Extraperlo 2022 will take place at the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas (MNAD) in Madrid. Inaugurated in 1912, the museum sits within a palace from the last third of the 19th century and portraits the evolution of the so-called “applied arts”. The collection includes furniture, ceramics, glass, metal and textile works, mainly between the 15th and the 20th century.

The participants have been asked to generate a project with the permanent collection of the museum as a starting point. We believe this context is an interesting opportunity to analyze what has been the role of this type of museum in the past, but above all, offer an insight of what could they become in the future.

Text by Tomás Alonso & Jorge Penadés

Biography —

Tomás Alonso is a cosmopolitan designer born in Spain. He appears to have initially been influenced by the resounding but very concise charm of the pioneers of the Modern Movement, from Weimar to Milan. He eventually opted for London and a Master’s at the Royal College of Art after an entire decade of study and professional practice in the USA, Australia and Italy, which merged into a clear and pragmatic vision of life, soon translated into his own line of elegant, linear and poetic objects finding his own dimension in the field of the “authorial” design.

His method, which might be described as “à la Castiglioni” due to its ideological simplicity, can be summed up as an intelligent morphological synthesis of a technicist type, which focuses on functionality as an absolute value and turns it into an idea for products which are quick and easily understandable into their constitutive elements. The very simple aesthetic qualities of his objects reveal the expressive potential of each specific material, which is also his main source of inspiration, conveying an expressive immediacy which makes his products universal and transgenerational. He uses both wood and metal in a sober, soft and practical manner, skilfully inverting the usual way in which these two materials are perceived: wood is reduced to very slender, squared, vectorial sticks, iron is curved, warm and coloured.

For him the boundary between art and design is never hazy. Even his publishing work, developed “with his own hands” in his big fully-equipped workshop shared with OKAY Studio collective of designers, never crosses that line which now tends to be rather vague and the cause of frequent, paradoxical misunderstandings. Text by Cristina Miglio, 2011.

‘The main function of decorative art is to embellish something other than itself: an object, a room, a building facade. ‘ – from the glossary of The National Gallery. 

With this project I want to give the visitors of the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas Madrid the opportunity to bring decorative ornaments outside of the museum, take them home, and to embellish something else. 

I took inspiration from the objects found in the museum’s online archive, analysed their shapes and forms, and subsequently created abstracted adornments based on them. 

Drawing upon the museum’s role as a facilitator for creation and educating taste, the final outcome is a collection of stickers made from Color-Dekor 180°. The stickers can be applied to any heat-resistant glass or ceramic object at home and fired in the home oven at 180 °C.

Biography —

Luisa Kahlfeldt (*1991) is a product designer and creative consultant based in Berlin, Germany. Besides her work as an independent designer, she is also the founder of her own label, Sumo. Luisa graduated with a Bachelor’s in Industrial Design from Central Saint Martins in London and completed her Master’s degree at the écal in Lausanne, Switzerland. She previously worked for Barber Osgerby in London and Konstantin Grcic Design in Berlin. She is the recipient of the 2019 Swiss James Dyson Award, the German Sustainability Award 2020 and the Red Dot Design Award 2021.

It’s a proposition for a photo holder. It’s a terrible typology of an object. But at the same time I think it shouldn’t be because there is something so innocently nice about displaying photos, notes, cards, poems, tickets, bills and a flower. 

I like its “mise en abyme” character within this specifique context as it is a story within a story, a display within an exhbition within a museum. I can only hope somebody will buy it and curate yearly exhibitions with pictures of a growing family. As said it’s a proposition. 

My key reference are children toys which are rather rare but happy encounters in museums of decoratif arts. I’m especially interested in some of the seemingly reoccuring themes wihin this universe: assemble and reassemble, arrange, compose and the pure pleasure of things fitting perfectly together. 

The piece is hand crafted. The base is made of a ivory coloured solid PVC board, the poles are piano wires and the vase is made of an extremly thin stainless steel tube, all things found at Weber Metaux – essential shop for semi finished materials (and a museum in itself) in the heart of Paris. Materials that do not demand a finish and I like them for that quality. The photos are held in place by spherical neodymium magnets that can be stored in the corners of the base.

Biography —

Born in Augsburg (Germany), Joschua Brunn lives and works in Paris. He began his technical training by studying interior architecture then entering the Master of Product Design at ECAL in Lausanne where in 2012 he obtained his Master degree with honors. During his Jury, he was spotted by the brothers Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec then moved to Paris to join their team. 

In parallel to this formative work, he continues to develop his practice as an independant designer. In particular, he carries out two lamp projects for the Galerie Kreo (Paris) illustrating his passion for material and technology. In 2018 he takes the decision to fully focus on his own ideas and shows prototypes in a solo show at Espace Indiana in Vevey (CH).

Since graduating from school, his work has been shown in several design exhibitions around the world. Best Emerging Designers from Switzerland, Hong Kong (2014), Contrast Control, Galerie kreo, Paris (2014), Design Miami / Basel, Galerie kreo, Miami (2015). Curious about the close links between art and design, he also exhibits with artist Guillaume Denervaud for the collaborative and experimental project “Bricolage Methylène” at Galerie Harpe 45, Lausanne (2015) and starts a satellite project with artist Camille Blatrix in 2019 named Carmine Brown.

I did a search on the museum’s archive for objects that were made with organic materials. I was thrown by a small figure of a woman holding a baby, made with corn leaves and tied together with a red string. My take was to work on a contemporary and consciously abstract figure that was a take on the previous image I researched.

I use organic materials as a base in my work. How they change and mutate from one state to another. Departing from this base, I decided to burn the surface of a corn and present the figure with no gender connotation. The original colour is still visible when you look at the piece from the side, appearing almost as a magic bright pattern.

The corn figure is embraced by a bigger chunk of hair that references the past generations of women. The figure is here being held up rather than holding. This small sculpture works on a symbolic level: where every element is important for the
material, the colour, the semiotics and the position in which it is laid up. Giving the full narrative to the materials, was my inmediate response to the fact that we are showing this pieces in the MNAD.

Biography —

Julia Mariscal was born in Barcelona in 1981, where she actually lives and works.

She did her studies in UK, finishing her BA (honors) at Goldsmiths College of Art and Design, and later she graduated with an MA at Chelsesa College of London.

Julia has performed at Teatre Lliure, Centro del Carmen and at Swab Art Fair. She has had solo exhibitions at Miquel Alzueta Gallery and Franco de Toledo Art Projects, in Barcelona; at Oblong Gallery, in London and at Grand Palais, in
Switzerland.

Her work has been included in several group exhibitions, such as Bienal de Jafre, invited by Carolina Grau; Sant Andreu Contemporani, Barceona, -curated by Sema D’Acosta; La New Gallery, Madrid -curated by Lorena Muñoz-Alonso; Vyner Studio, Londres; Complexe des Jardines, Canada, -curated by Alexandra Laudo.

Biography —

Gemma Holt trained as both artist and designer and studied Design Products at the Royal College of Art. She makes jewellery and small objects in a variety of materials, from paper to gold – each piece is conceived as both a work of art and design, neither driven solely by function nor by aesthetics. With every object she aims to express a complex idea, distilled into its simplest form. 

Biography —

Charlotte Talbot (1987) and Jonathan Mauloubier (1986) form the duo behind Atelier CTJM, based in western France. They have both a strong background in industrial design, having worked for several years for two of the most respected current german design studios.

Partner in life, the duo pursue their respective activities as potter and photographer, and meanwhile define a common approach as product designers to form their daily practice.

The studio focuses on creating products and experiences that carry a certain level of emotional aspect, considering the care invested in them. They believe the objects that surround us should not only be functional, but things we can relate to because of their story. Those objects we pack first, gift to friends or pass on from generation to generation.

Biography —

Francesco Meda, born in Milan in 1984. Graduated in 2006 from Milan’s Istituto Europeo of Design in Industrial Design. The designer gained experience in London working at Sebastian Bergne’s studio and later at Ross Lovegrove’s. Since his return to Milan in 2008 he has been collaborating with his father Alberto Meda on projects for clients such as Kartell and Caimi Brevetti. Concurrently he has been pursuing his own personal Art and Design projects with other companies and galleries such Nilufar Gallery, Hong Kong’s Schoeni Art Gallery,Colos, Luce di Carrara, Rossana Orlandi Gallery, Mint Gallery in London,Tod’s, Ferragamo, Molteni&C, Etal, Zucchetti. His “Orme Cinesi” collection, which has been extensively published, was exhibited in Hong Kong at the Lane Crawford store, and was presented by Schoeni Art Gallery during the 2012/2013 Hong Kong ART fair. In 2013 he co-designed  “Flap”, an acoustic panel produced by Caimi Brevetti which subsequently won the “Compasso d’Oro” award. In the same year he began his own production with objects such as LED lamps, marble tables, benches and 3D printed jewelry. 

With a visionary sense of contemporary and a passion for the history of design Francesco Meda and David Lopez Quincoces are appointed new creative directors of Acerbis in 2020.

Biography —

Nitsan Debbi is a product designer and a lecturer at the Bezalel Academy for Art and Design. Through her design work she strives to integrate the past with the future including technology and cultural aspects of design. The theme of Nitsan’s work is based on the approach of observation and study of the present with the goal of forward looking.

Nitsan works at Naoto Fukasawa Design office based in Tokyo, practices in a variety of fields, such as electronic equipment, furniture and exhibition design. The firm advocates a simple, understated and accurate approach to objects, a poetic design that relates to small but significant moments of our daily life.

In 2011 Nitsan established Studio BET together with Liora Rosin. Studio BET found great pleasure in converting everyday wonders into matter and shape, by integrating old crafts and modern technology in the studio work. Nitsan had completed a B.A. in Industrial Design in 2008 at the Holon Institute of Technology in Israel and a Masters Degree in Industrial Design in 2011 at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, Israel. She received a special award for her research studies at the ‘Science of Design’ department, Musashino art university, Tokyo.

I have always heard that curators’ role is “to give sense” to things. I believe that this role should enlarge and expand and could become much more, although reaching this goal is already something pretty much remarkable.

When Jorge asked me to co-curate the Extraperlo 2021 – CURATING CURATORS show I was thrilled to develop together with him an idea I had in mind for a while, and so CURATING CURATORS takes the meaning of curating people, which is both a delicate matter and an extraordinary challenge. There is not pretentiousness in this action at all – we do not want to take any lead on anybody – but instead we would like to celebrate personalities we respect, professionals who look at things in their own personal way so that we can stress the diversity of approaches to look at the world; as diversity brings in itself the seeds of freedom, there is not one point of view better than another (opposite to maths all angles are equal) and the final result of this project could trigger curiosity and magnify different ways of storytelling and therefore even our own vision of curating – could it be an exhibition, a performance or a text. Actually can be anything. The more risky the better. Each of us do come from dissimilar backgrounds and education, which will result in a different way of approaching new commissions and professional adventures –  it makes no difference if we examine an object or just a concept.

By putting together this exciting roster of great names we would like to highlight and praise a whole variety of slants and methodologies: we intend to discover how people respond to the same theme to create a shared experience full of possibilities and variables. The curator’s job is already vague to define. While it classically refers to making choices and interpretations, it is in fact an everyday act of courage, solidify your own vision through research, and also nurture the will of starting conversations with somebody – being it the designer, the object or the audience. Curating is about listening to the world and telling its story as you fell it – probably the most poetic act someone can perform.

Text by Maria Cristina Didero

Biography —

Maria Cristina Didero is an independent design curator, consultant and author, who has collaborated with magazines such as Domus, Vogue Italia, L’Uomo Vogue, Flash Art, Apartamento, Solar, Flair, L’Officiel, she was editor at large of Icon Design.

She has contributed to many publications including 1968 by Pierpaolo Ferrari and Maurizio Cattelan for Deste; Michele De Lucchi for Corraini; Sottsass for ICA Miami; Studio65 for GAM Turin. Okolo curated a book titled People by MCD and related project Designers by MCD at Prague Design Week. Didero consulted for companies such as Vitra, Fritz Hansen, Lexus, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Valextra among others.

Based in Milan, Didero works internationally curating numerous exhibitions for institutions in Italy and abroad, including: Nendo: The Space in Between and The Conversation Show at the Holon Design Museum, Tel Aviv; The System of Objects (with Andreas Angelidakis) at Deste Foundation, Athens; Fun House by Snarkitecture at National Building Museum, Washington D.C.; Super Design, at R&Company Gallery in New York, a book (Monacelli Press) and a film about Italian Radical Design; Vegan Design – or the Art of Reduction by Erez Nevi Pana at MDW18; The Fish and The Crowd by Carlo Massoud for the MDW19; Christmas Presence, a charity project (with Libby Sellers) London; SUNSHOWER by Nao Tamura, at Design Miami (with Aric Chen); Nature and Imagination between Canada and Italy (with Francesca Molteni), Toronto Design Festival 20; @DesignCucina, Instagram (with Libby Sellers); Tropical Milan by Erez Nevi Pana, Digital Design Week 2020; 208. Gio Tirotto, a public installation in Rimini.

She is currently preparing a solo exhibition by the Campana brothers at Dallas Contemporary, a project at the MK&G in Hamburg titled Ask Me if I Believe in the Future, and one in Eindhoven for 2022 plus a series of ongoing collaborations.

Since my diploma in industrial design, I haven’t worked as a designer ever. My material are words, thoughts, images, research, and continuously learning from design and through design and many other things. After a long period of being paralyzed I decided to use this challenge to go through my stuff, trying to sort them and in a way show you what I am thinking of, working on, what I love and what I fear. I don’t claim any intellectual quality and promise no outstanding inspiration. It is simply the attempt to let you be part of my work.

Biography —

Tulga Beyerle Born in Vienna, trained carpenter, trained designer, currently director of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (Museum of applied Art). After recieving the master in industrial design 1992 teaching at the University of applied Arts Design History and Theory, from 2001 to 2013 free lance design curator/expert, co-founding the Vienna Design Week with Lilli Hollein and Thomas Geisler, co-director from 2007 to 2013. From 2014 to 2018 director of the Kunstgewerbemuseum Dresden.

Ah! The fun of confetti. For a brief celebratory moment, the dopamine rush of watching it shot into the air, dancing in free fall like hedonistic snowflakes. Everything is lighter, beautiful, more jubilant. Yet often what is left? An impossible mess to clean up, tiny scraps of paper, or worse, of plastic, sowed into every corner of a room. The fantasy of celebration, crushed by feet, diminished to dirt by overeager brooms and roaring vacuum cleaners with unrelenting suction. And yet: It’s always worth it. 

Biography —

Felix Burrichter New York-based creative director, curator, editor, and publisher. Born in Düsseldorf, Germany, he was trained as an architect in Paris and New York.

In 2006 Felix founded the multimedia platform PIN–UP, a self-described “Magazine for Architectural Entertainment” with a biannual print edition. In addition to PIN–UP, Burrichter curates exhibitions, consults on design and architecture projects for various design brands, and edits books on architecture and design.

The Curatorial Paper Fortune Teller™
Let fate curate. 

When conceiving ideas for a new exhibition, the choices can be overwhelming. Will it be a museum show or an exhibition at a temporary fair? Will the content be historical or contemporary? Should it be thematic or monographic? Let fate dictate the answers with the amazing and completely revolutionary Curatorial Paper Fortune Teller™.

Based on the old-school origami game, the Curatorial Paper Fortune Teller™ is layered with curatorial options from which to choose. With each layer, a new direction reveals itself, ultimately leading to the final decision and qualities of the exhibition to be curated.

How to play (requires two people):

Have the curator pick a number from the options 1-4

Flick the Teller back and forth the chosen number of times between your index fingers and thumbs.

Keep the Teller open and have the curator pick a number from the options 1-8 inside.

Flick the teller back and forth the chosen number of times.

Have the curator select another option and reveal their fate waiting beneath the flap.

HAPPY CURATING!

Biography —

Libby Sellers is a design historian, consultant, curator and writer.

Her years as curator at the Design Museum produced a wealth of exhibitions, including the first UK retrospectives of Marc Newson and Peter Saville, a celebration of the life and work of Eileen Gray, the annual Designer of Year awards and the Thomas Heatherwick Conran Foundation Collection exhibition.

Through her eponymous London-based gallery (2007-2015), Libby worked with some the industry’s most critical and progressive designers, commissioning works to sell through curated exhibitions. Her close working relationship with these designers led to the launching of many new careers and developed a broader understanding of the narrative power of critical and conceptual design. These works have been purchased by international clients, collectors and museums – including MoMA New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Victoria & Albert Museum, London and CNAP, France.

Since closing the gallery space, Libby has focussed writing, client consultancy and freelance curation – the first of which was an exhibition on behalf of the Serpentine Galleries during Milan’s annual Furniture Fair. The most recent was Color and Production with Collective Design for Frieze New York in 2020.

She is a juror on numerous design awards, is on the vetting committees of international fairs, and has authored a number of publications and articles. Her most recent book, Women Design, was published by Frances Lincoln in 2018.

Libby was nominated for the 2008 Paul Hamlyn Breakthrough Fund for cultural entrepreneurs and in 2014 she was honoured by the Women of the Year awards as a Woman of Achievement in the Arts.

Designing in a Pandemic is about responding to immediate need. This is exactly what the group now known and the CoronavirusMakers in Spain did. In doing it so quickly they contributed to a global design fit for local fabrication of much needed safety equipment that formal institutes were failing to supply in time. This happened in early March 2020 when an accelerated build up of the community through social media led to immediate prototyping of co-designed iterations involving nurses and doctors, designers, makers, producers and communicators. Designing at its best is a response to real needs through an iterative and inclusive process. The conversation started on Telegram social media and picked up momentum to accelerate the community into action. One of these strands was around the design, improvement and production of face shields. Derived from an open source digital file, most likely by HanochH and parallel to other open source files being released around the world.

Gianluca Pugliese, a maker and teacher in Madrid specialising in digital fabrication and sustainable materials was one of the early adaptors collaborating as the CoronavirusMakers network along side César Garcia to get things done and share information in the best way as fast as possible. In the process they prototyped what open source distributed design could do better than the systems that were failing to respond to the needs for essential equipment. In effect mass producing in small quantities across multiple locations, near the places where the products were needed. Circumnavigating distant manufacturing, assembly, storage and shipping.

They also inspired local industry. PoliSur, a company specialising in injection moulding of fruit packaging based in Andalucia, joined their efforts and converted one of their production lines to make low cost face protection kits. Could this be one of the characteristics of future of designing and making? Will maker spaces, such as the one near here, Makerspacemadrid, play a bigger role in our cities everywhere?

The invitation to participate in Extraperlo 2020 was an opportunity to collaborate with César Garcia, Co-founder at Makespace Madrid, Digital Fabrication researcher, known for his podcasts at La Hora Maker, who found himself in a corralling role during the accelerated response of the makers in Spain to the Pandemic.

For more about the spanish makers ongoing fight against covid19:

https://www.makery.info/en/2020/06/17/english-spanish-makers-ongoing-fight-against-covid-19/ 

Biography —

Daniel Charny is a creative director, curator and educator with an inquiring mind and an entrepreneurial streak. He is co-founding director of the London based creative strategy consultancy From Now On, where clients include corporate, cultural and research organisations. His most recent initiative is the creative education think-anddo-tank FixEd.

Charny is best known as curator of the influential exhibition Power of Making at the V&A, which drove him to found the award-winning learning programme Fixperts, now taught in universities and schools worldwide. Other projects include the Aram Gallery, the British Council’s Maker Library Network and the the Design Museum’s Designer Maker User exhibition.

Charny is active internationally as a speaker and expert advisor, advocating his vision of design, creativity and making as essential tools to unlock a better future.

He is Professor of Design at Kingston University and guest lecturer on the Master in Design for Emergent Futures at IAAC, Barcelona. Previously Charny was Senior Lecturer at the Royal College of Art, where he taught for 12 years and Guest Professor at KADK, Centre for Codesign Research in Copenhagen. In 2019 he was awarded the London Design Festival Design innovation Medal.

This project is not about reinforcing widespread stereotypes about China and its reputation for copying. Instead, it aims to problematize what it is we mean by “copying.”

Several years ago, I became fascinated with the various “Original” stickers I came upon while browsing the Huaqiangbei electronics district in Shenzhen. These are versions of the holographic stickers that brands often affix to their products to verify their authenticity. However, in Shenzhen—a once-notorious center of piracy and counterfeiting that has quickly transformed into a hub of innovation—anyone can buy these stickers and apply them to whatever they want. The copy becomes the “original,” while driving an industrial ecosystem that evolves to produce true originals. 

Copying comes in many forms. Some are indeed nefarious, but most are in fact generative; human culture relies on it. As a curator, these stickers are interesting to me because they signify our role in assigning value or originality to objects, while also posing questions about authorship, how ideas are transmitted, and the sometimes arbitrary and convoluted relationship between the original and copy.

Biography —

Aric Chen is an independent curator and writer based in Shanghai, where he is Professor and founding Director of the Curatorial Lab at the College of Design & Innovation at Tongji University. In addition, he currently serves as Curatorial Director of the Design Miami fairs in Basel and Miami Beach. From 2012-2019, Chen was founding Lead Curator for Design and Architecture at M+, the new museum for visual culture opening in 2021 in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District. 

I would love to do an exhibition in which the designers “narrate” the pieces they want to make through a voice message and that whoever is going to do it interprets it according to what they heard. No drawings. No exact measurements. Just through intuition. From mouth to ear, from ear to hand. An experiment in which designers see themselves in a mirror that represents them inaccurately. I chose Inma Bermudez because she is a very precise industrial designer, one of those who draws plans to the millimeter and with little space for chance. Inma ordered a set for her family’s Sunday breakfast ritual, with containers that vary in size and function. From a tall glass of coffee for Moritz, another wide and low so that Otto can dip his muffins, a “normal” measure for herself and a plate for Carla’s pieces of fruit. She also asked for a plate for the soft-boiled egg and its shells, as well as a small vase for her wild flowers. Finally, for the napkins, some differentiated brass rings. To do it, I chose two studios in order to observe the difference interpretations of the same project. Canoa Lab (Raquel Vidal and Pedro Paz) who work both ceramics and metal, in a simple and exquisite way. And Adriana Cabello, a ceramist with a delicate expression and subtle tones. 

Biography —

Ana Domínguez Siemens Studied History of Art at Madrid’s Universidad Complutense and Decorative Arts of 19th and 20th century at Sotheby’s Art Institute (London). She works as a freelance journalist, writer and curator specializing in Design. She writes for prestigious newspapers and magazines and has written texts for books and catalogues about the work of Gaetano Pesce, Gunjan Gupta, Giulio Rodolfo, Álvaro Catalán de Ocón, Fredrikson Stallard, Anton Alvarez, Mattia Bonetti and others. She has curated several Design exhibitions about sustainable design, social design, 3D printing, DIY, self-production, packaging of the future or Diversity. Also one-man-shows about the work of Jaime Hayon and Patricia Urquiola.

So much about my experience with design involves assessing the failures and missteps that we encounter along the way. The eventual outcomes we define as ‘a success’ are embodiments of this accumulation of failures rather than the generally inferred singular experience of a finished product. ExCinere took us on a meandering journey from glass to glaze that totaled nearly four years. We went through hundreds of glaze and ceramic body tests before we arrived at the four glaze options we now offer as the product. I have boxes full of them. Combining a selection of these studies into a series of door handles reinforces the value of perseverance and the inherent beauty of failure.

Biography —

Brent Dzekciorius is the founder and director of Dzek, a London-based design company that develops and produces architectural products with contemporary designers. The company launched in 2014 and has collaborated with designers such as Max Lamb and Formafantasma to create new materials and furnishings.

Dear You, Congratulations on your purchase of a MATYLDA. Please read the instructions carefully.

MATYLDA’s open yet uncompromising attitude allows her to do pretty much anything, shifting themes and disciplines, mixing formats and methods comfortably.

MATYLDA is both a host and a guest. She can be left alone occasionally but needs to be fully immersed by people regularly.

MATYLDA challenges the existing. She needs people who think and act the same way. If the desired effect cannot be materialised, leave her alone.

MATYLDA twirls her hair. She needs to compensate energy.

MATYLDA’s uniform is made from Omega, a limited edition jacquard fabric by Valentina Cameranesi. Designed as homage to Bloomsbury Group’s Omega Workshop, which believed that artists could design, produce and sell their own work.

Last but not least, place MATYLDA close to you. Check the results of her influence from time to time and extend phases with her as necessary.

Biography —

Matylda Krzykowski works with space: objects within space and ideas outside of space. Her work has pulled peripheral threads into the centre, and has cast new light on ideas at the centre of the discourses she nourishes. Although these discourses cannot be reduced to conventional spheres of operation, they could broadly be identified as curation, design, architecture, art, hosting and performance.

Krzykowski seeks to instigate conversations, works to maintain their energy, and thereby affects results. These results are almost always entirely born from intense and generous collaboration. Her work has resonated globally. Krzykowski is organically interdisciplinary. (It’s a way of doing, rather than a way of thinking.) The tools she deploys include, but are not limited to: speech, instant messaging, archiving [see: Online Depot], art direction, theatre and performance [see: Design Date], scenography and choreography [see: Total Space], reportage [see: Things Might] and digital space treated as physical space [see: Desktop Exhibition]. The communication vehicles she employs include the exhibition, the intervention, the public talk, and Instagram, to name a few. Krzykowski travels widely to develop formats, participate in juries, to give lectures, curate exhibitions, and to conceive and deliver workshops in the cultural field. Wherever she may be, she sees the visible and reformats the unseen.

I have had three great love affairs in my creative life: skateboarding, graffiti and industrial design. I started skateboarding when I was twelve, graf ti at sixteen, and industrial design at nineteen. I saw them as unrelated activi- ties or disparate visual cultures, and I—somewhat myopically—felt that to be truly devoted to one I had to set aside the others. Recently I have started seeing the connections between these endeavors, and how they have all informed my aesthetic ideals. 

Biography —

Jonathan Olivares is an industrial designer based in Los Angeles. Recent projects include a retail shop for Camper (Rockefeller Center, 2019), the installations Brujas Training Facility (Performance Space New York, 2018) and Room for a Daybed (Kortrijk Biennale Interieur, 2016). Olivares’ work has been published internationally, granted design awards—including Italy’s Compasso d’Oro—and is included in the permanent design collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Art Museum, The Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Vitra Design Museum.

With this project, I wanted to reflect on 2020 and its legacy, what it has brought us and what we, as a society, wish to release. I am interested in what is being created, what stays, what gets forgotten or destroyed in order to build a better version of ourselves. I want to explore how design has influenced this year. I also wish to showcase the process of curating the ‘before / during / after’ phases, and the idea that curators are here to give a theme to react to and a platform for artists to express themselves.  

I selected a varied list of ten artists and designers, ten styles and ten messages in order to paint a broad spectrum of what the creative industry has felt in 2020 and would like to release in 2021. All of them will provide a physical artwork, which will be exhibited in a box and burnt at the end of the show during a fire ceremony, and a selection of images to create a one-minute film which will continue to live online.

The project casts a critical lens on the fact that most of the work commissioned by institutions and other cultural bodies is ultimately destroyed, or simply forgotten post-exhibition. The system needs to change, and we can start by raising awareness on what is happening.

In a nutshell, it’s time to shed our skin, let go, transform, move forward and build the new, while making sure that the creative voices of our generation are being heard.

Participants:

Dejha Ti x Ania Catherine (LA)
Lily Consuelo Saporta Tagiuri (NYC)
Emilie Baltz (Montreal)
Andre Mendes (Curitiba)
William Cobbing (London)
Wondervision (Paris / Lausanne)
Thijs Biersteker (Amsterdam)
Objects of Common Interest (Athens / NYC)
Chow and Lin (Beijing)
HY William Chan (Sydney)

Biography —

Anne-Laure Pingreoun is a design curator and founder of Alter-Projects, a multidisciplinary company that curates and produces special projects and experiences for brands and institutions, and Alternative-Thinkers, a new online platform where creative practitioners set the framework and are then connected to funding. Pingreoun began her career in marketing and design, working with some of the world’s top creative agencies for 15 years, where she oversaw brand collaborations with artists and creative practitioners.

Despite taking a behind the scenes role, Pingreoun’s vision is apparent in the ethos of every project she works on, from a seven-story mural to an installation made completely of recycled material in the heart of Times Square. Since the inception of Alter-Projects, Pingreoun has worked with renowned artists, from UVA to Studio Swine, Camille Walala, Studio INI, Maya Hayuk, Yuri Suzuki, Yinka Ilori, Fernando Laposse, Yang House, Fernando Mastrangelo and institutions like UK Gov, Somerset House, London Design Festival, NYCxDesign, LVMH and Art Basel. She has been the global lead curator of A/D/O by MINI, creative space in Greenpoint (Brooklyn, New York) for the past three years, and she is currently curating public art installations in Mayfair/Belgravia (London) for the Grosvenor Estate. She is also the curator for a Pavilion at the London Design Biennale 2021.

Flatland is an exhibition concept highlighting the shifting perception of domestic objects today. When staring in the screens of our computers, the physical objects of the surrounding environment happen to appear blurred — Ghost-like background figures which can be seen as a first stop before final vanishing. In the present model, the back wall represents a typical background image for zoom meetings.

The title Flatland refers to Edwin Abbott Abbott’s book Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, first published in 1884. The story takes place in a two-dimensional world describing both geometrically and philosophically the implications of life in two dimensions. Beyond sharply looking at societal injustice in the Victorian age A. Abbott’s book questions man’s understanding of physical dimensions. Alluding to the dominance of images, the exhibition Flatland aims to critically question the future of physical objects. 

Biography —

Robert Stadler intervenes in diverse fields, from — as he puts it — Duty Free proposals, and industrial or public commissions. He also regularly explores the exhibition context in order to question the identity of objects.

In 1992 Stadler cofounded the Radi Designers group in Paris which was active until 2008. In 2001 he set up his own design studio working for clients such as Drucker, Hermès, Lobmeyr, Thonet and Vitra.

He also has created a number of limited edition pieces for Carpenters Workshop Gallery. Stadler’s work is included in many permanent museum collections amongst which the Dresden State Collections, MAK – Museum for Applied Arts / Contemporary Art in Vienna, Fondation Cartier pour l’Art contemporain and Vitra Design Museum.

Stadler has curated several exhibitions such as “Quiz” at Galerie Poirel in Nancy and MUDAM Luxemburg and “Typecasting – An Assembly of Iconic, Forgotten and New Vitra Characters” during Milan Design Week 2018.

In 2017 the Noguchi Museum in New York presented his first institutional exhibition in the US in dialogue with Isamu Noguchi’s works. In the same year his first survey exhibition was shown at Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau in Dresden, Germany. 

Wherever you look, Death has coloured the last year. Roaming London’s streets during the long gloom of Covid lockdown, sometimes it seemed the only lights burning on the high street were the undertakers. I became fascinated by the eerie language of tributes and reliquaries. How peculiar is it that while our fantasies play out in cyberspace we should revert to playing Victorians when we bury our dead? Every age has its design aesthetic, but here the funeral industry seems to be firmly stuck in a time warp.

Project Death presented at Extraperlo is a work-in-progress that reveals how all our projects begin – with a deep dive into research and a cluster of objects or images that we find resonant and somehow provide the catalyst for shaping a curatorial perspective. The material gathered here is a prelude to the larger Project Death where we will invite designers and artists from different cultures to imagine their own death and re-design death rituals and remembrance from a 21st century perspective. Our intention is to explore how we can bring new meaning and imagination to how we celebrate the dead, rooted in humanism, ecology and an understanding of our place in the natural world.

Jane Withers’s Death Project includes funeral candies which are part of ‘Holy Food’, an ongoing project by design studio Arabeschi di Latte.

Biography —

 Jane Withers is a leading curator, writer and design consultant. Her London-based studio works with global institutions and brands on curation, programming and design-led strategies that bring innovative design thinking to address social, cultural environmental and commercial challenges. The studio has a long record working with sustainability and recently curated the  Water Futures research programme at A/D/O in New York – a year-long multi-disciplinary platform exploring the role of design in tackling the global water crisis.

Jane has curated critically acclaimed exhibitions and programmes at the Victoria & Albert Museum and Royal Academy of Arts among many others. She teaches and speaks internationally and has served on numerous juries and advisory boards. Jane was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the University of Westminster for services to the environment and received Milan’s Design Prize for Experimentation.

There is a form of proactive sabotage that acts through the radical questioning of the system of knowledge – great dogmas as well as small certainties. Some children do it, with a sense of provocation and a love of paradox, when continuing to ask why in front of every answer obtained. And Parasite 2.0 studio does it, meticulously dismantling the paradigms of the disciplines to freely rethink design, architecture and scenography. The dialogue, the exchange of ideas and different points of view, is the driving force behind the work of Stefano Colombo, Eugenio Cosentino and Luca Marullo. The flow of their thoughts is permeable, open to the external solicitations and the interventions of other people, as in the case of the curator. The invitation to add a step to their research, with a project that must fit into a shoebox, sets in motion a cascade mechanism of absolute questions – how much does space weigh? – and led to the fragmentation of the Renaissance ideal city, then reassembled on an impalpable fabric according to the peculiar vision of the Italian collective. A very light, modified, transportable architecture, which invites the visitor to free interaction and, above all, to independent thinking.

Biography —

Annalisa Rosso is a design writer and curator. Co-founder of Mr. Lawrence, Milan-based studio focused on contemporary design and special projects. Formerly editor-in-chief of Icon Design magazine (2019/2020) and Domus website (2017/2018).

Among the latest projects she curated: Design Loves Milano charity auction for Ospedale Sacco, Glass Utopia (presented at Canberra Design Festival 2019, The Venice Glass Week 2020 and soon at Milano Design Week 2021), the solo shows Human Code by Roberto Sironi and Panorama by Valentina Cameranesi. She has written and produced stories for several magazines including: Wallpaper, Casa Vogue Brasil, AD and Elle Decoration (international editions), 032c, Purple, Blau, Alla Carta, Cartography.

This film is a form of curatorial note-taking that translates research into visuals, sounds and movement with quotes from a text as a form of sceptical testing. The condition of lockdown in Spring 2020 stimulated my interest in notions of time, in particular slow and long time. The consequences of our short-term thinking seem to show their detrimental effects in all parts of life from politics to education and the environment. I became an avid reader of Dan Hill’s Slowdown Papers (medium.com/slowdown-papers). Roman Krznaric’s The Good Ancestor became a place to understand the end of ‘normal’ and take responsibility not for us but future generations.  

Biography —

Jana Scholze is a design curator. She is Associate Professor at the Kingston School of Art in London heading the MA Curating Contemporary Design in collaboration with the Design Museum.

Her transdisciplinary research covers questions around formats of interaction and contemporary design practice engaging with society, technology and the environment. She is a Fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum where she has been previously the Curator of Contemporary and Modern Furniture and Product Design working on acquisitions and exhibitions, such as ‘What is Luxury?’ (2015). She is a member of the AHRC’ Peer Review College, and a member of the board of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg and the Stanley Picker Gallery in London. She is one of the initiators of The Design Film Festival (2020) and co-curates an exhibition about domesticity for the XII International Design Biennial Saint-Etienne in 2021.

No disciplines, no generations, no hierarchies. No genders, no roles, no limits. Just ideas, pure ecstasy!

Vase, experiment with the material properties of unvulcanised silicone.

Biography —

ODD MATTER is a design studio driven by curiosity for all the strange and wonderful. Researching, probing, creating and exploring our world’s past, present and future through its materials, processes and concepts.

The studio believes that by working with existing processes and notions, researching these from a different more naive perspective a different kind of products can be created. Unique and specific to the place they originate from.

Odd matter are Dutch native Els Woldhek and Bulgarian Georgi Manassiev. They met whilst undertaking their MA studies in the Design Products department at The Royal College of Art. The pairs common interest in the borders of creation, process and material has put them on a shared path. One that operates across a wide range of disciplines and seeks to work with existing industries to create products, interiors, concepts or unique commissions more true and telling of their creation and ‘will’.

We are focusing on the crisis but behind the crisis, behind the obvious, is  the potential and opportunity for friendship. 

Biography —

Matylda Krzykowski works with space: objects within space and ideas outside of space. Her work has pulled peripheral threads into the centre, and has cast new light on ideas at the centre of the discourses she nourishes. Although these discourses cannot be reduced to conventional spheres of operation, they could broadly be identified as curation, design, architecture, art, hosting and performance.

Krzykowski seeks to instigate conversations, works to maintain their energy, and thereby affects results. These results are almost always entirely born from intense and generous collaboration. Her work has resonated globally. Krzykowski is organically interdisciplinary. (It’s a way of doing, rather than a way of thinking.) The tools she deploys include, but are not limited to: speech, instant messaging, archiving, art direction, theatre and performance, scenography and choreography, reportage and digital space treated as physical space. The communication vehicles she employs include the exhibition, the intervention, the public talk, and Instagram, to name a few. Krzykowski travels widely to develop formats, participate in juries, to give lectures, curate exhibitions, and to conceive and deliver workshops in the cultural field. Wherever she may be, she sees the visible and reformats the unseen.

The twist candles use the flexibility of wax. Candles are usually straight and therefore need a base. In this project we tried to combine both the base and the candle in a single material ans shape. Resulting in a series of bended candles. The liquid state of wax was a starting point in this project. By bending and twisting candles a new typology appears combining form, function and fun.

Biography —

Lex Pott (1985) employs a raw and intuitive method. In his work, he returns to the origin of the materials he uses most: wood, stone and metal. He does not hide his designs under indirect layers, but reduces them to their very essence.

Pott works from his design studio based in Rotterdam. He graduated cum laude in 2009 at the Design Academy Eindhoven. 

Borosilicate glass has a different composition than common glass, which means that they cannot be recycled together, and as its use is less widespread, there are no collection systems for its recycling, so it ends up in landfill. This served as a starting point for this project, Ceramic & Glass, where I have focused on finding ways to reuse borosilicate waste to innovate in the field of ceramics. This year I did a 3-month residency in Jingdezhen, the porcelain capital of China, where I made these pieces with borosilicate waste that I brought from London.

Biography —

Attua Aparicio Torinos is a London based Spanish artist. She graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2011 from MA Design Products. She explores the area where design, craft and art meet.

In 2011 she co-founded Silo studio with Oscar Lessing. Silo’s work is a mix of craft and technology, which aims to find new ways of making by adopting a hands-on approach.
By keeping their developments open and sharing it in videos and workshops they seek to inspire people to question how things are made and to make more for themselves.

Attua also collaborates in a regular basis with her sister Saelia. They collaborate for a long time, but not officially until last year when they presented the show your consequences have actions, at the Tetley, Leeds, UK and cadena atrófica, at cpdc, Murcia, Spain.

In 2018 Attua went to the EKWC -European Keramic Work Centre- to develop a solo project: Ceramic & Glass. Her project begun at glass artist and partner Jochen Holz’s bin. Frustrated with the fact that the borosilicate glass can not be recycled and powered with an innate prejudice-free view of materials, Attua decided to use the glass shards as a raw material.

At the beginning of 2019 she was invited to do a 3 month residency at Jingdezhen International Studio, China. In Jingdezhen she scaled up and continuing with Ceramic & Glass. She is explored form by hand building, used borosilicate for slip casting and for glazing, and only used porcelain as clay body. She also worked with local masters to get to know and utilise the wide variety of skills available at the porcelain capital of the world.
Attua likes to work with a wide variety of materials.
From working with plastics she enjoyed the feel of using something very new, still with plenty of room for development for artistics applications. She especially enjoyed using industrial materials in different ways that they have been designed for. But due to environmental concerns she never felt totally comfortable about the use of plastics on her work. That’s how she started working with ceramics. The vast history of ceramics as well as its endless possibilities and the alchemy of it have hooked Attua. 

Because kitchen roll holders are boring AF.

Biography —

Fredrik Paulsen, 1980, based in Stockholm. He holds an MFA from Royal College of Art in London and a BFA from Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm, where he is now a visiting tutor.

Fredrik’s work includes furniture and interior design as well as exhibitions and he is interested in creating a sense of accessability and community, using design as a vehicle. In the spectrum of Fredrik Paulsen’s work are notions of anti-consumerism, psychedelic escapism and counter culture. It celebrates atmosphere and artificiality through material, colour and form. With a playful approach to the carefree and mundane, he experiments with creative processes challenging the sense of preciousness inherent to the field of design.

The following is a book/exhibition that gathers works and artists from all over the world drawn from a vast pool of submissions sent to info@chambernyc.com. It hopes to pay tribute to these talented practitioners who, unfortunately, we never replied to.

Biography —

Juan García Mosqueda is an independent curator, writer, designer, advisor and scouter.
He is the founder of Chamber, an online and offline, content-generating platform for ideas working at the intersection of art, design and architecture. Founded in 2014, Chamber collaborates with designers, architects, curators, critics, researchers, artists and writers worldwide to produce objects, spaces, media anx exhibitions. He has worked with more than 300 individuals from a flat landscape of disciplines and continues to promote our further engagement with material culture through newly-commissioned physical and digital works.

He is also the founder of Quick Tiny Shows, an independent initiative started in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to promote the exhibition of progressive art and design ideas in new contexts, acting as a para-institutional entity for experimental thinkers in Latin America and abroad.

Juan is a frequent advisor to the LVMH group and collaborates as an international scouter for the Loewe Craft Prize every year since its inception.

No disciplines, no generations, no hierarchies. No genders, no roles, no limits. Just ideas, pure ecstasy!

It is the fifth year anniversary of the studio and I wanted to reflect on all the shapes and projects I did in the past. The little creatures are a kind of library of what I have accomplished in the past five years. Normally you make the models and then the final piece but for me it’s the opposite. I make the piece and then the models. I keep them as a statement of what I have done. It’s just pure experimentation and a very playful moment, keeping my practice as free as possible.

Biography —

Marlene Huissoud is an experimental designer that works as a freelance designer for different companies alongside the art & design areas.  In 2014, she graduated from a MA Material Futures at Central Saint Martins’ School of Art and Design in London where she developed the project From Insects. An exploration of insect materials from the common honeybee and the Indian silkworm.

Marlene’s work questions our way of making by creating purposeful pieces that ethically challenge the properties of natural resources and that defy the role of Design in society and its use nowadays. Self aware and progressive, Marlene’s work balances Nature’s natural disorder with Man’s disordered need to find meaning in everything . Her work process is an invitation to take consciousness of our impact on Earth and act upon it.This juxtaposition allows the observer to take a look and wonder whether or not if things would be better if we just let the world be. She believes in the value of a concept and the importance of the creative process.

Marlene has been named as one of the UK’s top 70 rising design stars representing the future of British design by the Design Council, has been named the Most Innovative Experimental Artist of the year 2018 by AI Global Excellence Award, won the AI Business Excellence Awards – Most Innovative Design Studio London – 2018, has been nominated by the Arts Foundation UK for the Material Innovation Award in 2016, won the Make me! Design Prize in 2015, nominated for Design Parade at Villa Noailles in 2015, won the Diploma Selection Award at Designblok in 2014.

Sketch model for a side light in paper. A pivoting metal ring allows it to stand over a surface, or to hang from a wall, shelf or ceiling.

Biography —

Tomás Alonso is a cosmopolitan designer born in Spain. He appears to have initially been influenced by the resounding but very concise charm of the pioneers of the Modern Movement, from Weimar to Milan. He eventually opted for London and a Master’s at the Royal College of Art after an entire decade of study and professional practice in the USA, Australia and Italy, which merged into a clear and pragmatic vision of life, soon translated into his own line of elegant, linear and poetic objects finding his own dimension in the field of the “authorial” design.

His method, which might be described as “à la Castiglioni” due to its ideological simplicity, can be summed up as an intelligent morphological synthesis of a technicist type, which focuses on functionality as an absolute value and turns it into an idea for products which are quick and easily understandable into their constitutive elements. The very simple aesthetic qualities of his objects reveal the expressive potential of each specific material, which is also his main source of inspiration, conveying an expressive immediacy which makes his products universal and transgenerational. He uses both wood and metal in a sober, soft and practical manner, skilfully inverting the usual way in which these two materials are perceived: wood is reduced to very slender, squared, vectorial sticks, iron is curved, warm and coloured.

For him the boundary between art and design is never hazy. Even his publishing work, developed “with his own hands” in his big fully-equipped workshop shared with OKAY Studio collective of designers, never crosses that line which now tends to be rather vague and the cause of frequent, paradoxical misunderstandings. Text by Cristina Miglio, 2011.

We all love eating… right? Prototype cutlery pieces, flatware with hand extruded  handles.

Biography —

James Shaw is an explorer of the material landscape with a hands on approach. His work aims to interrogate the material, systemic and formal approaches to the creation of objects. Frequently his work considers the resources around us challenging the notion of ‘waste’ to create new beautiful materials. Waste plastic has been a key theme of his work both through his ongoing Plastic Baroque project and notably in the exhibition Plastic Scene he co-curated with Laura Housely in 2018, which was named ‘the standout show of LDF’ by the New York Times.

James has exhibited internationally including at The Design Museum, The V&A, Boijmans van Beuningen Museum and MOMA. Past awards include being nominated for the Design Museum Designs of the Year Award and winning the Arc Chair Design Award. His work is in the permanent collections of MoMA, The Montreal Museum of Art and The Museum of London among others.

En un pais sin fronteras el extraperlo carece de sentido, la utilización de un tabaco que proviene de Cuba se debe únicamente más alla de su calidad por su nombre propio: Montecristo. La no creencia te lleva a dar importancia a la arbitaridad de la hitoria y el amor a la ficción. La úncia ocasión para que siga habiendo contrabando es la ilegalidad, una cantidad superior a la dosis personal abre el producto Santocristo un nicho de mercado del cigarro de marhiguana tradicional.

Biography —

Since construction, Santomà works in different formats that move between design, architecture, sculpture and scenography. It uses simple mechanisms to alter familiar objects in a constant process of deformation creating complete environments.

His work denotes an interest in the systematic transformation of the ways of objectifying, organizing, analyzing and, therefore, of transmitting. He could be described as being interested in how a space is affected by the production of elements vaguely similar to furniture as well as by chromatic interventions. It seems that the force that motivates his interest in the architecture is driven by the question: how does the social space of a reactionary mind look? The question is a sensitive one because we tend to ascribe the practice of art to liberal values, even though there are plenty of historical examples of artists who by no means share such principles. Yet Santomà adds another twist: the artist is not only interested in how politics shapes character and how character shapes taste, but also how, then, taste shapes the body. Do ultra-conservatives sit in chairs similar to the liberals?

Biography —

Ilona Gaynor is a designer, artist and writer. Her work is occupied by the conflicts, entanglements and geometric dimensions of capital and the problem it poses for plot and image.

She works with objects, texts, film, photography, print and languag to explore the aesthetic horizons of finance, law, crime, politics and cinema.

Dice Miró “Me siento atraído por una fuerza magnética hacia un objeto, sin premeditación alguna; luego me siento atraído por otro objeto que al verse ligado al primero produce un choque poético, pasando antes por ese flechazo plástico, físico, que hace que la poesía te conmueva realmente y sin el cual no sería eficaz…”. Con estas ideas jugamos en apartamento cuando hacemos nuestros bodegones, y con sus restos y los restos de esta idea tienes esta lámpara, Jorge.

Biography —

Nacho Alegre is a photographer, publisher and creative director based in Barcelona. After studying Law, Nacho became a photographer shooting mostly campaigns and editorials.  In 2008 he co-founded apartamento magazine with Omar Sosa and Marco Velardi. There, he acts as a publisher and creative director. Apartamento is widely recognized as today’s most influential interiors magazine. International, well-designed, and simply written it is an indispensable resource for individuals who are passionate about the way they live.

For the exhibition Extraperlo, we devised a series of books, presenting some of the exciting topics and stories throughout the history of modern design and architecture which still wait for the serious research and documentation. We chose these topics because we think that they should be published in the form of books to fill blank pages in the design history. We created several types of fake books with no real content to stimulate researchers and our work too. Each book represents particular style from serious monography to independent exhibition catalogue to envision possible scenarios how these topics could be presented in the near future.

1. André Bloc: Sculptor, Painter, Designer, Architect and Editor
André Bloc is one of the most important figures of French modernism. This highly prolific designer highlighted his talent in many various disciplines to support and develope French design of the modern era. Despite it, there is no proper book about his versatile work, including furniture design, graphic design, paintings, sculptures, experimental sculptural houses and editorship of important magazine L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, which he founded in 1930. We think that this is the huge topic for French design historians to be done.   

2. Toni Cordero: Life and work of  Hidden Postmodern Master 
Our great friend and collaborator Fulvio Ferrari from Turin, who owns and runs Casa Mollino as a museum, told us many stories about the late Turin-based architect Toni Cordero. Working during the 1970s and 1980s, Cordero was a master of interior decoration and created distinctive style of postmodern aesthetic. He also re-discovered Carlo Mollino at the time when he was completely forgotten and shared his eclectic design visions. Cordero is one of the neglected figure of the 20th century Italian design who would deserve biography and monography.     

3. Brazilian Flavour in Europe: Buildings of Oscar Niemeyer in Europe

In 1965, celebrated Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer resigned from the University of Brasília to protest against military dictatorship. After that he moved to Paris where he founded his new studio on famous Champs-Élysées. He stayed in Europe until the mid 1980s and built several important projects in Italy, France, Algeria and Lebanon. We think these European projects of this Brazilian master deserve some new photo series which could be published in a beautiful huge coffee table book.  

4.Slopestyle: Modernist Architecture of Mountain Resorts

Edoardo Gellner, Charlotte Perriand, Carlo Mollino, Marcel Breuer, Franco Albini, Armando Ronca. All these modernist architects shaped the modern vision of mountainous leisure. With the increasing popularity of skiing during the 20th century, modernist architecture became one of the tools to create new sport and entertain world on the mountain slopes. Highly interesting and important architecture should be documented all around Europe and put together as a great academic research study, showing the influence of modernist mountain resorts.   

5. Hot Fire: Visual history of modernist fireplaces
Fireplace is one of the most exciting typologies to design. Particular function needs particular form which doubles as a domestic sculpture between architecture and design. Chronological survey of most interesting fireplaces of the 20th century, designed as unique elements of architecture or industrial-produced items, would be just perfect source book of one single typology of design.   

6. Paolo Buffa: Italian Elegancy
Monography on important and forgotten Italian designer and architect Paolo Buffa is something we are waiting for ages. Buffa’s highly elegant pieces of furniture from the 1940s and 1950s are often seen at the auction houses sales. But some survey of his career and life is completely missing. We envision small brochure which could give readers at least elementary and basic informations about the designer’s significance.   

7. Print Power: Influence of magazines for 20th century design and architecture 
Magazine is a strong medium which always influenced all human professions. Architecture and design are not the exceptions. Throughout the 20th century, design magazines played crucial role in developing and supporting new ideas. There were already few books on architecture magazines published, notably by Taschen. But we think there would be amazing opportunity to create alternative history of architecture and design from the perspective of important and little known magazines published all around the world during the last century. 

Biography —

OKOLO is a creative collective with a focus on design, architecture, art, style, fashion, and the entire scope of cultural city life which, thus, becomes the subject of our activities in design journalism, curatorial exhibitions, print publications and special projects and events through which we strive to collaborate with creative individuals from various fields a look for an unexpected way of presenting design and more.

OKOLO was founded in 2009 and is run by graphic designers Matěj Činčera and Jan Kloss and curator Adam Štěch. The studio is based in Prague, Czech Republic.

Ever since I discovered Letterpress printing in 2004, I have been amazed by the weight and precision of the modular components that are used to hold and assemble type together.
These modular geometric forms are called quads and are considered the ‘negative” space since these are not printed and its only use is to hold the letters together, filling out the chase (the metal frame that is placed on the bed of the printing press).
I tend to print using quads to visually represent negative space, showing what is hidden. Quads were a crucial starting point in the development of my visual language which aims at marrying opposites: analogue (letterpress) and digital (pixels).

Biography —

Cristian Zuzunaga (b. Barcelona, 1978) is the son of a Peruvian father and a Catalan mother. He gave up his biology studies and his career as a professional model to study Typo/Graphic Design at the London College of Communication followed by an MA at the Royal College of Art in London, where he has lived for more than twenty years.
Though the biological studies did not last, the practice of magnifying did–he has always been fascinated by the microscope and the way in which it enables one to magnify an object–and to this day, breaking down patterns and images into their infinitesimal components remains at the core of his work.
Cristian’s work is broad in scope–includes photography, video, letterpress, screen printing, sculpture, textile and furniture design–and it is informed by the psychology of colour, architecture and the urban environment, nature, Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, anthropology, sociology and the psychology of Carl Gustav Jung.
His designs and works of art are reflection on and of what it means to be human today. In 2010 he founded Zuzunaga brand, with the desire to create timeless, non-gender specific and sustainable home and fashion textiles and accessories.
Zuzunaga has won major accolades such as the Augustus Martin Award for Best Use of Print, in 2007; Elle Decoration International Design Award for Best Fabric Design, Skyline curtain collection for Kvadrat, in 2011; ICFF New York, 1st Prize for Textiles, Handwoven collection, in 2012 and the Wallpaper Award for Best Pixellation, in 2014.
Cristian combines his own manufacturing with collaborative work for companies and institutions like the Tate Gallery, Kvadrat, Camper, Ligne Roset, Fabergé, Nanimarquina and BD Barcelona Design, and also exhibits his work in a number of galleries around the world.

1/10 scale models that using 3d printing technique. Original concepts and shapes are from my series which called ‘the moment of eclipes’. This prototypes can be shown how to move the moon during the eclipse and It goes to be a stool, bench or larger installation.

Biography —

Kwangho Lee was born in 1981 and grew up in a small city next to Seoul, Korea. He completed his studies at Hongik University in Seoul, majoring Metal Art & Design, and graduated in February 2007. He currently lives and works in Seoul. This year marks his 10th year since the start of his career as a designer. Making things by hand was a great joy as a child, reminding his grandfather who, a farmer himself, constantly hand-made daily household goods from natural materials found nearby. Kwangho Lee appreciated the way he looked at everyday objects and thus began to approach things in similar ways; to give new meaning and function to the most ordinary. Today, as he continuously presents new series of works, he develops his practice by discovering moments of materials joining another. Until now he made works on marble and marble, copper and enamel, steel and steel and tries to describe in his works the instant moment of union.

He was nominated for Jury’s Selection of Designer of The Future at Design Miami/Basel in 2009 and was selected as Artist of The Year 2011 by the Korean Ministry of Culture and Young Craftsman of The Year by Yeol-a society for Korean cultural heritage-in 2013.

His works were shown at Commissaires, Johnson Trading Gallery, Victor Hunt, Karena Schuessler, Clear Gallery & Edition, Gallery Seomi, along with group projects and international exhibitions such as Design Miami/Basel, and Design Days Dubai.

Also, his works are included as a permanent collection at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art along with a number of features of his works released in major design publications worldwide. 

The barbaric interview consists in a sequence of tight and fast questions to designer Jorge Penadés, to which he has to answer not only in the most proper and articulated way, but also as fastest as possible. It plays on the systematic reactions of our brain towards the pressure of giving a reasonable feedback to an external request. 

Biography —

Maria Cristina Didero is an independent design curator, consultant and author, who has collaborated with magazines such as Domus, Vogue Italia, L’Uomo Vogue, Flash Art, Apartamento, Solar, Flair, L’Officiel, she was editor at large of Icon Design. 

She has contributed to many publications including 1968 by Pierpaolo Ferrari and Maurizio Cattelan for Deste; Michele De Lucchi for Corraini; Sottsass for ICA Miami; Studio65 for GAM Turin. Okolo curated a book titled People by MCD and related project Designers by MCD at Prague Design Week. Didero consulted for companies such as Vitra, Fritz Hansen, Lexus, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, Valextra among others. 

Based in Milan, Didero works internationally curating numerous exhibitions for institutions in Italy and abroad, including: Nendo: The Space in Between and The Conversation Show at the Holon Design Museum, Tel Aviv; The System of Objects (with Andreas Angelidakis) at Deste Foundation, Athens; Fun House by Snarkitecture at National Building Museum, Washington D.C.; Super Design, at R&Company Gallery in New York, a book (Monacelli Press) and a film about Italian Radical Design; Vegan Design – or the Art of Reduction by Erez Nevi Pana at MDW18; The Fish and The Crowd by Carlo Massoud for the MDW19; Christmas Presence, a charity project (with Libby Sellers) London; SUNSHOWER by Nao Tamura, at Design Miami (with Aric Chen); Nature and Imagination between Canada and Italy (with Francesca Molteni), Toronto Design Festival 20; @DesignCucina, Instagram (with Libby Sellers); Tropical Milan by Erez Nevi Pana, Digital Design Week 2020; 208. Gio Tirotto, a public installation in Rimini. 

She is currently preparing a solo exhibition by the Campana brothers at Dallas Contemporary, a project at the MK&G in Hamburg titled Ask Me if I Believe in the Future, and one in Eindhoven for 2022 plus a series of ongoing collaborations.

The loofah toch is a functioning and rechargable flashlight for the house and it’s chunky proportions make reference to children toys. The light diffuser is made with loofah, the fibers of a tropical vine commonly used as a shower scrub.

Biography —

Fernando Laposse (1988) is a London based Mexican designer, he trained in Central Saint Martins as a product designer.

Fernando specialises in transforming humble natural materials into refined design pieces. He has worked extensively with overlooked plant fibers such as sisal, loofah, and corn leaves.

His works are the result of periods of research that are developed into objects where materials and their historical and cultural ties to a particular location and its people take center stage. He often works with indigenous communities in his native Mexico to create local employment opportunities and raise awareness about the challenges they face in a globalised world.

His projects are informative and educational adressing topics such as the environmental crisis, the loss of biodiversity, community dissolution, migration and the negative impacts of global trade in local agriculture and food culture. He does so by documenting the issues and announcing possible resolutions through the transformative power of design.

His projects have been exhibited in the Triennale di Milano, Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, The Design Museum in London, Victoria and Albert, the World Economic Forum and Miami Basel to name a few.  His work is held in the permanent collections of the V&A and SF Moma.

These tests start with the fire of a clam bake in 2015. Aluminum melted over an open fire was poured over some beach rocks and wood. We wouldn’t revisit this idea until 2017 while preparing our pieces for Domestic Appeal curated by Matylda Krzykowski. A kind of casserole dish made of a steel ring was filled with a layer of glow in the dark marbles, topped with aluminum and baked in a furnace. These ideas of covering things in molten metal would continue until where we last left it in March 2018 where we cast panels of marbles encased in zinc as diffusers for our Brittle Star suspension lights.

Biography —

Chen Chen & Kai Williams is a design studio that explores materials and new ways to use them. The studio invents new techniques and materials or diverts common industrial supplies to off-label applications.

Chen Chen and Kai Williams met while attending the Pratt Institute and founded the company in New York City in 2011. The studio creates a wide range of products from hand made one-off and limited production collectible works to manufacturing specialty home goods carried by retailers around the world. Whatever the method, an overarching sensitivity to materials and production processes carries through every object.

Collectible Design works represented by The Future Perfect. Past clients include Whitney Museum, Gagosian, Kvadrat, Hem, Heron Preston, Mission Chinese Food and Warby Parker. Presentations of their work have been held at the Museum of Art and Design (USA) and the Venice Architecture Biennale (Italy). Manufacturing clients include West Elm, Tai Ping Carpets, Areaware and Good Thing.

Expanded Polyclayrene (EPC) is a collaboration between Spanish designers Julen Ussia and Jorge Penadés.

When designing something the process usually starts with a brief…ummm wait! Do we really need to have a document that breaks down all the (un)necessary conditions that a project needs to face? EPS attempts to disolve the idea of brief. Instead of start making decisions based on context, function, timings, pricing and so on, the process started the other way around; they picked an anonymous object that they irrationally liked and started to wonder what could become. The object was a storyfoam element (technically called “expanded polystyrene”) that Jorge collected for and old project and they decided to translated into clay which is the main material with which Julen normally works.

Even though the function is deliberately left to the user´s interpretation, the result is an hybridization between one of the most polluting materials in the world and one of the most natural. The tension among them is what really interest us.

Biography —

Julen Ussia (1993, Amurrio, Basque Country) moved to Barcelona in 2011 to study in a career of Arts and Design at Escola Massana, Center of Arts and Design of the city. Entering the third year, he began to work with ceramic processes, within which the know-how and thinking of the crafts had a remarkable strength in him. In such a way, different antique knowledges and ideas could come to discover new meanings in the Product Design and space fields. During those two last years he deepened in the material experimentation and the manual work.

In mid-2014 he traveled to Safi (Morocco) to develop a project at the CAC Center of  Contemporary Arts of Essaouira. When he returned, he completed an internship with Apparatu and among others, he shared a lecture during ARTCOP21 at the Barcelona Design Museum under the title ” Rethinking Applied Arts ”. In 2016 he was selected by the ADI-FAD to participate in the Independent Design exhibition during the Business of Design Week in Hong Kong. He finished his university studies with a mention in Applied Arts, where he found a wide field of experimentation in ceramics and its possible developments in other areas of creation; in which he is still immersed. He returned to the Basque Country to complete his studies with a Master in Ceramics: Art and Function, having studied and worked at Ollerías, Basque Pottery Museum.

In 2016, he has taught a workshop merging ceramics and urban environment during Elisava’s Creative Marathon and not long ago has gone through Bureau Mad in Madrid. Recently, he has been part of the Madrid Design Festival with a conference and workshop at MiniHub de Malasaña. Since finishing his studies in Barcelona, he has participated in various exhibitions throughout Bilbao, Barcelona, Madrid and La Rioja. He has collaborated with different designers such as Ibai Velilla and Gennis Senen in Proyecto Rastro, with Max Enrich, fashion designer Mikel Lazkano and Koos Breen.

Since the last year, he has moved to Barcelona again to teach in the Arts and Design Degree  at Escola Massana. He also started working at Eltorn Bcn, International Hub of Ceramics of Barcelona.