The Netherlands

In a future that is more systemised, organised, and modular we search for objects that disrupt our daily lives. Looking to feel human again, we want to introduce functional items into our lives that don’t just serve a functional purpose but bring texture and meaning to our life.

This collection features objects that fight against a world that is commoditised and systemised. It celebrates irregularity, rawness, and complexity. Each designer has an intimate relationship with the materials they use and look at the use of that material in a new light. Designer Sho Ota highlights the quality of the wood grain by hand chiseling out knots to create hand-made furniture following the nature of the wood, while Geke Lensink combines geometry and craftsmanship in objects that have a personal and abstract narrative. Object Density looks at using lenses from the spectacle industry in a new way – as a looking glass to manipulate light – and Their & van Daalen capture the fluidity of glass by draping the material over steel for their vessel. Rive Roshan uses natural sand to create an object of movement and stillness, whilst Jesse Visser takes large stones and turns them into lighting objects.

Read our interview with curators Ruben de la Rive Box and Golnar Roshan on Adorno Editorial.

An Irregular Future

Curated by Rive Roshan

“Knot Round Stool” from the “According to the Grain” project
by Sho Ota

This project highlights the quality of a wood knot, the character of which is often treated as a defect and neutralized in industrial processing. By chiseling down 12mm from a flat surface and chiseling out the knots, its three-dimensionality and texture are enhanced and its unique materiality becomes palpable to the casual viewer. The surface can now reveal more secrets and help the user imagine what this material once looked like in its natural state.

JAR
by Geke Lensink

The octagonal ceramic jars are developed and produced by Cor Unum. The shape of the sixty-centimeter-high vase is derived from associations with age-old, decorated vases whose fragments are glued together again. The abstracted Arabic patterns on the white vases break at the corners and are combined with black geometric shapes, creating a rich contrast.

Triptych XL
by Jesse Visser

These huge narrative works resemble their namesake wood-painted panels from medieval churches but are contemporary and daring statements of solid high-polished brass and stainless-steel plates. Triptychs are used in the traditional sense to tell a story. This work, with the Latin title ‘Cogitatio inanis’ (best translated as ‘thoughtless mind’), is only about emptiness, reflection, and material. Behind the folding shutters lie reflective panels with a round circular light that reflects an atmospheric light. In his search for new production techniques and innovative materials, Visser has developed a preference for tactile materials in which the processing of the surface plays a role. In addition to this intensive finishing technique, detailing in Visser’s work is just as important, for example, in the development of the solid stainless steel hinges.

Studio Thier and Van Daalen
by Pink vase on Steel base

 

Rug
by Geke Lesink

The RUGs are a reflection on Geke Lensink’s travels to Kenya and Northern Africa, these memories are made tangible in minimalist designs in black and white, creating a balance between functionality, craft, and beauty. The use of natural materials is a matter of course. The RUGs are made of 100% felted wool and handmade in the designer’s own studio.

Lens Luminaire
by Object Density

Through a close inquiry into an optician’s process and production, Object Density have realized the opportunity to redefine an element of waste. The “Lens Luminaire” collection seeks to reinstate the value of imperfect, un-usable optical lenses, by highlighting their inherent beauty and unique distortive qualities. The collection began as a tangible convergence of inspiration, drawing upon Eindhoven’s (NL) history of lighting innovation, New Objectivity architecture, and the detailing of contemporary luxury optics, to form a suspended light-based artwork. The installation has been distilled to a collection of floor and desk lamps suitable for residential spaces. By drawing upon cultural narrative and considered materiality, the lamps reflect how the interplay of past and present may shape our future. A future in which ‘waste’ material can be recontextualized and imbued with renewed social and economic value.

Beacon of Light
by Jesse Visser

“Beacon of Light” reflects the search for wandering and holding on. Like an anchor in the mist. A boulder holds a sandblasted glass sphere balanced by a minimalist custom-made pulley, creating tranquility in form and content.

“Flow” Wall Mirror
by Rive Roshan

This piece features 3d printed natural sand, freezing free-flow motion into a still sculptural wall mirror. The “Flow” Wall Mirror is made out of natural sand from Bavaria and has a bronze mirror.

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