http://cargocollective.com Madeleine Hinchy Fri, 12 Oct 2012 02:14:23 +0000 http://cargocollective.com en http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/Soul-Man-Master-craftsman-George-Nakashima http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/following/madhinchy/Soul-Man-Master-craftsman-George-Nakashima Fri, 12 Oct 2012 02:14:23 +0000 Madeleine Hinchy 4243040 <img src="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4243040/geo-at-desk-in-conoidstubest.jpg" width="670" height="453" width_o="709" height_o="480" src_o="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4243040/geo-at-desk-in-conoidstubest_o.jpg" data-mid="22363060" border="0" align="left"/>The handmade works of the late Japanese-American furniture maker George Nakashima have become collectors’ items for a reason. Long considered a defining figure in the American studio furniture movement, master artisan George Nakashima’s work remains relatively unknown in Australia. “I’ve had enquiries from Australia but no purchases,” says Philadelphia-based gallerist Robert Aibel, who has been selling Nakashima’s designs at the city’s Moderne Gallery since the mid-’80s, a time when the craftsman’s work wasn’t so prized. “In 1985, people thought of his work as used furniture, because you could go direct to George and order anything you wanted,” says Aibel. <img src="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4243040/japan-geo-marks-slab.jpg" width="567" height="851" width_o="567" height_o="851" src_o="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4243040/japan-geo-marks-slab_o.jpg" data-mid="22362959" border="0" align="left"/> Following Nakashima’s death in 1990, the market for his work slowly grew, before skyrocketing in the early 2000s. Collectors marvelled at the way it integrates itself into any interior scheme. In the last 10 years, his handmade furniture has triggered fever-pitch bidding at auctions worldwide. ‘Arlyn’, a large redwood dining table, reached US$822,400 (approximately $794,600) at a Sotheby’s auction in 2006. A brilliant example of his free-form designs, the table features a top formed from a piece of transverse timber cut from the base of a giant redwood root. “He was working with wood in a way that nobody else in the 20th century had been; [he had] that idea of having a level of respect for the tree and letting the wood speak for itself,” says Aibel. <img src="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4243040/conoid-bench-with-back-9-long.jpg" width="670" height="439" width_o="850" height_o="557" src_o="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4243040/conoid-bench-with-back-9-long_o.jpg" data-mid="22362970" border="0" align="left"/> Silver Plume gallery in Sydney’s Double Bay is selling a series of Nakashima works from the 1960s and ’70s, which co-owner Tad Anderman brought over with him when he relocated from the United States. They include one of the coveted free-form black walnut dining tables, a bench and a sideboard, and six ‘Conoid’ chairs made by the craftsman’s daughter Mira Nakashima, who continues to produce her father’s and her own designs from the family workshop in Pennsylvania. “They’re a phenomenal conversation piece,” says Anderman. “His furniture was very much in the tradition of the American Arts & Crafts movement,” says Andrew Shapiro, director of Sydney’s Shapiro gallery and a specialist in 20th-century decorative arts. “The construction details are the beauty of the furniture: the dovetailing and butterfly joints.” The American-born Shapiro grew up in Philadelphia, a short drive from Nakashima’s picturesque property in Bucks County (now a compound of buildings, some open to the public, including the working studios). Family visits to his studio as a child in the ’60s made an indelible impression. “It was one of the only places you could go back then and see exotic, flamboyant grained woods, and the unique man who was turning them into fabulous furniture,” he says. <img src="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4243040/Arts-Building-Mingure-IV-Dining-Table-Conoid-Chairs.jpg" width="567" height="850" width_o="567" height_o="850" src_o="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4243040/Arts-Building-Mingure-IV-Dining-Table-Conoid-Chairs_o.jpg" data-mid="22362951" border="0" align="left"/>Born in Spokane, Washington, in 1905 to Japanese immigrants, Nakashima studied architecture at the University of Washington and gained a masters degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After working as an architect in New York, he embarked on a cross–cultural process of self-discovery in the ’30s that saw him travel the globe for seven years. He arrived in Tokyo in 1934 and spent five years in pre-war Japan. He was profoundly inspired by the country’s dedication to excellence in craft: “The elegance and power of simplicity, the beauty of proper materials, the delicacy of unfinished wood, the traditional and modern creative proportions, where the error of a fraction of an inch can make the design fail absolutely.” <img src="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4243040/familyportrait_woodpile_ng_bobh.jpg" width="567" height="557" width_o="567" height_o="557" src_o="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4243040/familyportrait_woodpile_ng_bobh_o.jpg" data-mid="22363011" border="0" align="left"/>After a period in Pondicherry, India, he returned to America and married. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Nakashima, his Japanese-American wife Marion and baby daughter Mira were interned in a “War Relocation Camp”, where Nakashima became apprentice to a carpenter trained in Japanese woodworking. The family was released in 1943 and headed to rural Pennsylvania, where they would establish his first workshop on three acres of land in Bucks County. Over time, the estate expanded to include the Nakashima family home, workshop and storage facilities, a museum and a reception house. While Nakashima designed furniture collections for Knoll and Widdicomb-Mueller, his most collectable pieces are the result of private commissions. Robert Aibel estimates he made up to 35,000 pieces in his lifetime, working alongside a core group of a dozen artisans. The workshop made 200 pieces for the house of Nelson Rockefeller in 1973. <img src="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4243040/IMG_8710.jpg" width="670" height="446" width_o="720" height_o="480" src_o="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4243040/IMG_8710_o.jpg" data-mid="22362988" border="0" align="left"/> Nakashima saw wood as an “eternal material” and believed once the tree was felled, it was the responsibility of the woodworker to use the timber respectfully. “Each flitch, each board, each plank can have only one ideal use. The woodworker applying a thousand skills, must find that ideal use and then shape the wood to realise its true potential. The result is our ultimate object, plain and simple,” he wrote. He was opposed to the use of veneer, believing it cheapened the inherent dignity of timber, and he was unique in that he found merits in timber others rejected. Recognising the value of defects he once said, “is the core of our madness, I guess, and also our business.” <img src="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4243040/p.jpg" width="584" height="768" width_o="584" height_o="768" src_o="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4243040/p_o.jpg" data-mid="22362979" border="0" align="left"/> The large holes where a tree had begun to decay and then healed itself were seen as “a positive statement of life which makes am extraordinary design expression” and details in the wood caused during storm damage were revived as a new form of patterning. His sensitivity to the life and personality of the wood and approach to the process of woodworking was almost evangelical and certainly mystical. Although he was a practising Catholic, his work was influenced by Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo. He told Life magazine in 1970: “I think I’ve always been that kind of seeker. But I am also Japanese enough and pragmatic enough to want to give this spirit physical expression... The endeavour must be to bring out the beauty and proportion, the textures and depth of the material used, to produce something that may last forever.” This story was first published in Vogue Living July/Aug 2012. For a PDF of the original story click here. Visit nakashimawoodworker.com. All images occur courtesy of George Nakashima Woodworker, S.A. The handmade works of the late Japanese-American furniture maker George Nakashima have become collectors’ items for a reason. Long considered a defining figure in... http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/The-Lovely-Bones-Ceramicist-Juz-Kitson http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/following/madhinchy/The-Lovely-Bones-Ceramicist-Juz-Kitson Fri, 12 Oct 2012 01:40:23 +0000 Madeleine Hinchy 4242963 <img src="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4242963/ArtistPortraits-JuzKitson-46.jpg" width="567" height="850" width_o="567" height_o="850" src_o="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4242963/ArtistPortraits-JuzKitson-46_o.jpg" data-mid="22362459" border="0" align="left"/>Juz Kitson, a young ceramicist on Sydney’s Central Coast, uses her fascination with organic forms to create objects of unsettling beauty. Juz Kitson moves around her studio, bangles chiming. She doesn’t normally give interviews face to face, she confesses, as she hands over a wad of typed pages she wrote when anxiety about the interview kept her awake the night before. Her studio on the New South Wales Central Coast sits at the point where cultivated garden descends into dense bushland. Close proximity to the bush makes the boundaries between the habitat of humans and wildlife indistinct. European wasps buzz menacingly around the building’s entry and snakes and rodents have been known to steal in to the studio, attracted to the organic materials. “They go for the feathers and alpaca wool,” says Kitson. “They make nests. I can hear them at night but it is quite nice, this relationship between the animal and the work.” <img src="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4242963/juzkitson_vogueliving_hi-221.jpg" width="670" height="409" width_o="992" height_o="606" src_o="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4242963/juzkitson_vogueliving_hi-221_o.jpg" data-mid="22362618" border="0" align="left"/>An intensely private person, the acquisition of her honours project ‘Formations of Silence’ by the unorthodox David Walsh for his Museum of Old and New Art in Tasmania has stimulated growing interest in her work. “It was June 2009 and I had never heard of him. A friend called to say [Walsh] was in Sydney and wanted to come to my studio.” The work was half-finished but after a few minutes, Walsh said he would take the lot. “People were quite unsure of my work. It took him to pay attention and things started to happen.” <img src="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4242963/ArtistPortraits-JuzKitson-14.jpg" width="640" height="661" width_o="640" height_o="661" src_o="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4242963/ArtistPortraits-JuzKitson-14_o.jpg" data-mid="22362481" border="0" align="left"/>The freakish beauty of her art is not for everyone. Like artist Kiki Smith, an obvious influence, Kitson has a penchant for the hidden workings of the body and Frankenstein-like fusings of the animal and human. A trained ceramicist, she transcends the traditional potters wheel, clay and porcelain. She has experimented with fusing foreign materials to ceramics since she was a student watched over by bemused but benevolent teachers at Sydney’s National Art School. “They let me be. I was creating some really strange things, working with latex, plaster and porcelain.” <img src="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4242963/11.jpg" width="670" height="469" width_o="1024" height_o="717" src_o="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4242963/11_o.jpg" data-mid="22362532" border="0" align="left"/>Her work consists of wall sculptures, taxonomic collections of small works displayed in groups usually built around that enduring signifier of love, death and desire – the heart. It’s unclear whether this organ is human or animal, but the installations thrive on uncertainty. Each sculpture manifests an unsettling clash between the beautiful and the grotesque. She holds a morbid fascination with the fragility of latex and wax, seeing them as symbolic of human decay when used in contrast to petrified ceramic. “Ceramics are petrified and will last a lifetime, whereas the material that is added within will perish, just like us.” <img src="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4242963/ArtistPortraits-JuzKitson-13.jpg" width="670" height="446" width_o="850" height_o="567" src_o="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4242963/ArtistPortraits-JuzKitson-13_o.jpg" data-mid="22362473" border="0" align="left"/>Combined with other materials such as horse hair, wool, bone and snake skin, each work alludes to the natural but swings closer to the alien. Delicate porcelain sculptures could be female genitalia or the buds of flowers. Rose forms have petals covered in red flocking the colour of congealed blood; others are ethereal coral-like bouquets created out of fine curlicues of porcelain or unmentionable bulbous forms.“I see them as quietly seductive. They are provocative, because underneath they are quite disgusting,” says Kitson. “They are hybrids of nature.” Walls and surfaces in her studio are covered with bones and antlers, mementoes of overseas travel and regular bone-collecting trips to the historic goldmining town of Hill End. “I spend the week out there, sometimes with a friend and sometimes alone. I find the most obscure materials, and all sorts of different carcasses.” She collects roadkill – rabbits, turtles and other creatures. Fresh carcasses are brought back to an ants’ nest on the Central coast property and any remaining tissue left for the insects to strip. The bones are then cleaned and bleached before being brought into the studio. “I wasn’t initially interested in using the bone or the skulls in the work – they were just for inspiration – but it is quite nice to pick up a dead lifeless object and then give it new life,” she says. <img src="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4242963/juzkitson_vogueliving_hi-221.jpg" width="670" height="409" width_o="992" height_o="606" src_o="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4242963/juzkitson_vogueliving_hi-221_o.jpg" data-mid="22362618" border="0" align="left"/>Some are covered in porcelain and petrified, others dipped in the glossy wax that congeals in scattered metal cooking pots around the studio in shades varying from deep watermelon to a pretty candy pink. Applied to the bones, they give the appearance that the animals have found flesh again. One animal skull is in the midst of a hair transplant operation, its wax skin punctured with a porcupine quill with a pin on one end that has been heated on a tealight flame. Each hair is inserted individually. “It is like a process of meditation. It becomes incredibly meticulous.” <img src="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4242963/juz-kitson-2012-85.jpg" width="670" height="1112" width_o="683" height_o="1134" src_o="http://payload97.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/4242963/juz-kitson-2012-85_o.jpg" data-mid="22362526" border="0" align="left"/>There is a strong sense of ritual to Kitson’s work – in the alternative lifestyle it demands and the constant travel it prompts. It’s a solitary life for a person in her mid-twenties, but she sees it as less of a choice then a necessity. She maintains other studio spaces, one as near as Sydney, another as far away as Beijing where she recently returned from a three-month residency. She is planning a return to China to spend time in the Jingdezhen, the porcelain capital. “My outlook on my practice has changed. I see it more as a lifestyle. I see this whole process as completely organic. It is a process of evolution and as I grow, the work grows with me.” This was first published in Vogue Living July/Aug 2012. Click here to download a PDF of the original story. Photographs courtesy of Caroline McCredie and Brett East. Juz Kitson, a young ceramicist on Sydney’s Central Coast, uses her fascination with organic forms to create objects of unsettling beauty. Juz Kitson moves around... http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/Domestic-Goddess-Ilse-Crawford-for-Georg-Jensen http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/following/madhinchy/Domestic-Goddess-Ilse-Crawford-for-Georg-Jensen Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:35:26 +0000 Madeleine Hinchy 3772425 <img src="http://payload73.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/3772425/VL0512ilsecollection-2.jpg" width="670" height="452" width_o="2048" height_o="1382" src_o="http://payload73.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/3772425/VL0512ilsecollection-2_o.jpg" data-mid="19622099" border="0" align="left"/>Intrigued by the nature of daily rituals, Ilse Crawford creates a functional but poetic line for Georg Jensen. The small tasks at the beginning and end of a day, entering or exiting a home, are of great interest to designer Ilse Crawford. The objects touched, the small items collected, the putting down or picking up of keys, rings on, watch off, pockets emptied and coins saved. These rituals, soothingly familiar but so innocuous they are typically performed without consideration, are celebrated in Georg Jensen’s Ilse Collection, the first collaboration between the luxury Danish design house and Crawford, the influential British interiors and product designer. Built around this concept of daily ritual, the collection comprises two bowls, two vases, three boxes and a candleholder, designed to house objects deemed special by virtue of their daily use. “The Ilse collection is for holding the special things that you use every day,” explains Crawford. “We wanted to make a series of pieces that could be integrated within your daily life and that wouldn’t be stuck away in a cupboard for ‘best’. I imagine them being next to the bed, in the bathroom, on a desk – those places around the home where you put things so you can find them again.” The range is imbued with the essential humanity and discreet beauty that is a hallmark of Crawford and her design firm Studioilse. Key to the design process was a sensitivity and awareness of the myriad ways in which human beings interact with objects and their environment. Further inspiration for the collection came from delving into the Georg Jensen archives, consulting with their artisans and immersion in aspects of Scandinavian culture and sensibilities. Apart from their elegant form, value is imparted via straightforward functionality, with all pieces adaptable for different contexts. Edges are soft and materials mixed; the chilly elegance of stainless steel is tempered by warm brass, rich copper and solemn black glass. There is a gentle and expressive femininity to the pieces, conveyed most dramatically within the magnificent sinuous curves of the ‘Mama’ vase. The tactile, full-bellied form is undoubtedly the collection’s linchpin and has been identified as a potential design classic with its inauguration into Georg Jensen’s carefully edited line of signature items, Masterpieces. Crawford is the first female designer to receive this honour but observes that the elevated status of the vase was a happy accident and not by design. “We were just trying to do a collection that was as good as it could be.” Crawford has Danish heritage and believes that this partly explains her easy affinity with Scandinavian culture and the values and approach of Georg Jensen. “I like very much that in Scandinavian culture there has never been a big division between the homely and the modern; those two together with humanistic design have always been one and the same.” Crawford believes the influence this has on the creative process is palpable, creating an environment for pieces to evolve as “warm and usable and appealing to so many people as well as having great design credentials.” She may have just described the Ilse Crawford collection This story was first published in Vogue Living May/June 2012. Download a PDF of the story here. Intrigued by the nature of daily rituals, Ilse Crawford creates a functional but poetic line for Georg Jensen. The small tasks at the beginning and end of a day,... http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/Snip-Tuck-Benja-Harney-and-paper-art http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/following/madhinchy/Snip-Tuck-Benja-Harney-and-paper-art Tue, 08 May 2012 02:11:17 +0000 Madeleine Hinchy 3001653 <img src="http://payload35.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/3001653/VL0312PAPER01.jpg" width="606" height="909" width_o="606" height_o="909" src_o="http://payload35.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/3001653/VL0312PAPER01_o.jpg" data-mid="17269570" border="0" align="left"/>With seemingly surgical precision and skill, designers and artists are transforming humble paper into whimsical works of art. Once treasured, paper may have lost its primacy in the digital age, but artists and designers across the world see the medium as versatile and ripe for reinvention – perfect fodder for those looking to return to more tangible forms of creative expression. ‘Paper art’ seems to engender an excitable passion in people. Nicky Ginsberg, director of NG Art Gallery in Sydney, had represented Australian paper artist Lizzie Buckmaster Dove for several years when she stumbled across the book Papercraft (Gestalten) at the Tate in London and was astounded by the skill and imagination within. A few years on, she has invited more than 15 internationally recognised paper artists to partake in an exhibition at her Chippendale gallery in March 2012. “Paper art is becoming recognised at a global level, where it stops being craft and becomes art,” says Ginsberg. It’s the perceived ordinariness of the material that makes its metamorphosis so interesting. “There’s a sense of wonder about it because it’s a material people use every day.” “They don’t realise when they pick up a piece of paper what it can actually do,” observes one of Australia’s better-known paper workers, Benja Harney, who is participating in the show. “Serendipity more than design” led the trained graphic designer to “paper engineering”, as he calls it. He developed his skills by studying pop-up books. “There are probably only 30 different techniques. It’s like a piece of music – you hit a certain chord and you just add the notes together to create a different piece.” He puts in 18-hour days with scalpel in hand, Patti Smith playing on his computer, and past works to keep him company. He is reluctant to part with completed commissions. The section of the studio he shares with a jeweller and an artist is an ever evolving retrospective exhibition of his career. In the assortment of brightly coloured paper objects above his desk, recent works, such as pink flamingos, sit alongside his earliest works: a crown and faceted orb decorated with tiny paper jewels. Using the most humble tools – coloured paper, scalpels, glue – Harney strips objects to their core, conveying their essential qualities with carefully placed folds. “I made seven pairs of those wings,” he says, looking at a set hanging above his desk. “That was a real lesson, being precise for 30 days in a row. But I find it quite meditative. You have to concentrate and repeat, repeat, repeat.” Failure comes cheap with paper and the artists show what can be achieved with an adventurous spirit and scissors or scalpel. Canadian woodworker Colin Schleeh explores paper’s capacity for strength when layered or folded in a hand-cut paper and wood sculpture; Cara Barer exposes the beauty of aged books; and Hina Aoyama’s barely-there lace-like illustrations and word pieces, hand-cut using scissors, are a feat of ephemera. “You have to be a very specific type of person to work with this medium,” observes Ginsberg. “You can’t be big and bold and brash; it demands a certain attachment to self and an intense and extraordinary patience.” As Harney told his design teacher when she warned him of the importance of precision, perfection, while elusive, is attainable. “Perfect? I can do perfect,” he told her, and it’s while chasing that perfection that the magic occurs. This story was first published in Vogue Living Mar/April 2012. Photograph © Damien Bennett. With seemingly surgical precision and skill, designers and artists are transforming humble paper into whimsical works of art. Once treasured, paper may have lost... http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/Tall-Order-The-new-architecture-of-Michael-Hansmeyer http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/following/madhinchy/Tall-Order-The-new-architecture-of-Michael-Hansmeyer Wed, 14 Mar 2012 03:12:33 +0000 Madeleine Hinchy 3001655 <img src="http://payload35.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/3001655/VL0112HANSMY06.jpg" width="567" height="756" width_o="567" height_o="756" src_o="http://payload35.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/3001655/VL0112HANSMY06_o.jpg" data-mid="15296186" border="0" align="left"/>Gothic, futuristic, reptilian – the lofty columns of Swiss architect Michael Hansmeyer represent a new order for a digital age.‘Do not touch’ signs do little to stop the curious fingertips that find their way across architect and programmer Michael Hansmeyer’s infinitely detailed computer-generated columns. “The signs are completely ignored. Everyone wants to put their hands inside and on them. But that’s nice to see,” he says. Whatever associations the imposing structures evoke – they have been described as gothic, futuristic and even reptilian – their complexity is enthralling. Each column possesses a unique fractured topography filled with branches and webs; surfaces flow out and fold back on themselves, with details too intricate to render by hand. Having first exhibited one column in 2010, Zurich-based Hansmeyer showed The Sixth Order, four permutations of his designs, at the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale in South Korea. Despite the focus on Doric columns, he has no interest in reimagining this ancient structure. Instead, the project represents the shift computer programming is causing in architecture, with architects designing processes to generate forms rather than the forms themselves. The columns are designed with a mathematical formula commonly used in animation. The algorithm cuts the surface of a simple shape into ever-smaller faces to make hard edges appear rounded; this is repeated with each new face, creating millions of faces. “If one changes the parameters of the algorithm, then suddenly you create shapes that are not just rounded but display entirely different characteristics,” says Hansmeyer. <img src="http://payload35.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/3001655/gwangju_design_biennale2.jpg" width="670" height="326" width_o="1025" height_o="500" src_o="http://payload35.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/3001655/gwangju_design_biennale2_o.jpg" data-mid="15296273" border="0" align="left"/> The architect shifts the points between facets slightly, skewing and rotating them so that the next set of divisions creates an entirely different effect, but he cannot predict the final form. The columns are then manufactured via a digital printer in 2700 horizonal layers of ABS plastic. which are assembled around a steel core. At present, they remain exhibition pieces. Hansmeyer imagines that in the future they could be used within contemporary architecture, but whether people would want the alien-like structures in their homes is another matter. At nearly three metres, the towering columns of minute patterns elicit immediate responses in viewers. <img src="http://payload35.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/3001655/live8.jpg" width="567" height="277" width_o="567" height_o="277" src_o="http://payload35.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/3001655/live8_o.jpg" data-mid="15296258" border="0" align="left"/> “Some people find them very aggressive. We get a person every once in a while who rushes out in shock,” says Hansmeyer. But he wouldn’t presume to tell people what to think. “Where is the line between beautiful and interesting? I do find them aesthetically pleasing on some level. But they can also be overwhelming.” An intriguing mode of expression has been generated. This was first published in Vogue Living Jan/Feb 2012. Click here to download a PDF of the original story. Photographs courtesy of Michael Hansmeyer and Kyungsub Shin. Gothic, futuristic, reptilian – the lofty columns of Swiss architect Michael Hansmeyer represent a new order for a digital age.‘Do not touch’ signs do little... http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/Nightwalker-Studio-Toogood-s-Natura-Morta-project http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/following/madhinchy/Nightwalker-Studio-Toogood-s-Natura-Morta-project Wed, 14 Mar 2012 02:31:42 +0000 Madeleine Hinchy 2994294 <img src="http://payload34.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2994294/PaulBarberaToogood.jpg" width="595" height="760" width_o="595" height_o="760" src_o="http://payload34.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2994294/PaulBarberaToogood_o.jpg" data-mid="15295426" border="0" align="left"/>English designer Faye Toogood explores the dark side in Natura Morta – a provocative exhibition and series of midnight dinners held within an 18th-century Milanese apartment.Of her resistance to being pigeonholed as a certain type of designer, Faye Toogood says, “I have a constant need and desire for reinvention – I get bored easily.” The designer and creative director of Studio Toogood certainly is consistent in her desire for inconsistency, defying trend and inverting the idyllic and cheerful sentiment of past work in her project Natura Morta. The provocative show was presented during 2011’s Milan Design Week at Erastudio, an 18th-century apartment turned gallery space. As well as a platform to launch her new series of furniture and objects, Natura Morta was an environment in which to explore Toogood’s burgeoning fascination with the dark side. Natura morta means ‘still life’ in Italian, but the direct English translation is ‘dead nature’. A lot has happened in the world that has brought home to me nature’s brutality. There is something beautiful about that darkness, so I wanted to explore the dark side of the natural world and of human nature,” she says. <img src="http://payload34.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2994294/midnightdinner_photo20tom20mannion.jpg" width="567" height="378" width_o="567" height_o="378" src_o="http://payload34.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2994294/midnightdinner_photo20tom20mannion_o.jpg" data-mid="15295783" border="0" align="left"/>The simplicity of Toogood’s first collection was inverted in the second, a process she describes in photographic terms as akin to working in the negative. Rustic British materials – English sycamore, brass, and Portland stone – at the core of that first range have been usurped. Their elemental replacements include smoky solid resin, aluminium and melted pewter, which erupted in volcanic forms across the surface of sandcast ‘lunar plates’. “ Past pieces were reborn in new incarnations, including the rustic ‘Spade’ chair encased in handstitched leather and also in a roughly cast aluminium anodised to charcoal black. At night, the Natura Morta morphed into the setting for Underkitchen. One of the most talked about events of the Design Week calendar, the series of private midnight dinners was art directed by the designer and involved a seamless integration of fashion, design, food and art. Guests sampled from an intriguing tasting menu of ‘black’ dishes created by food design collective Arabeschi Di Latte that saw simple ingredients used in unexpected ways: dishes included artichoke flowers carbonised to jet black on a barbecue and eggs dyed in tea to metamorphose as giant glossy marbles. >.<img src="http://payload34.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2994294/midnightdinners203_photo20tom20mannion.jpg" width="567" height="378" width_o="567" height_o="378" src_o="http://payload34.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2994294/midnightdinners203_photo20tom20mannion_o.jpg" data-mid="15295855" border="0" align="left"/>Seen alone or considered in its entirety, Natura Morta delivered a compelling demonstration of Toogood’s extraordinary powers of imagination. “I think I am very much a storyteller. It’s about finding new ways to tell stories,” she says. This story was first published in Vogue Living July/Aug 2011. Download a PDF of the original here. Photograph courtesy of Paul Barbera. Video by Alessandro Marianacar English designer Faye Toogood explores the dark side in Natura Morta – a provocative exhibition and series of midnight dinners held within an 18th-century... http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/Filip-Dujardin-s-fictional-architecture http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/following/madhinchy/Filip-Dujardin-s-fictional-architecture Tue, 13 Mar 2012 07:33:20 +0000 Madeleine Hinchy 2994215 <img src="http://payload34.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2994215/imagesCATRJ7G7.jpg" width="420" height="420" width_o="420" height_o="420" src_o="http://payload34.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2994215/imagesCATRJ7G7_o.jpg" data-mid="15257721" border="0" align="left"/>A photographer navigates the realms of the plausible and impossible with fictional architectural ‘photographs’.Filip Dujardin admits he is a frustrated architect. But the Belgian photographer’s aspirations to design buildings have been anything but stifled. Since 2007, he has forged a parallel artistic career to his work as an architectural photographer with Fictions, a series of digitally orchestrated images featuring impossible architecture. <img src="http://payload34.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2994215/imagesCA2NF869.jpg" width="420" height="420" width_o="420" height_o="420" src_o="http://payload34.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2994215/imagesCA2NF869_o.jpg" data-mid="15257708" border="0" align="left"/>In his structures, windows and doors are optional, as is the need to follow basic rules of engineering or even gravity. Cantilevers are extreme, floors wonky or pitched and layouts are overall dysfunctional. “I come from a country of surrealists and I guess I follow in that tradition,” says Dujardin. Access to technologies allows him to construct images that leave viewers second guessing – are the buildings real or invented? “I’m working on the axis of reality and unreality. You never see buildings like these in real life, but there is a sense of plausibility,” he says. Childhood rambles to sites of architectural interest with his interior architect father imbued him with a fascination for built structures. Teachers advised Dujardin that he lacked the maths smarts to succeed, so he studied art history with a focus on architectural theory. Later, studies in photography led to a career as a photographer for Italian design publications such as Domus and Casabella. A desire to devise his own buildings returned: his first images were interventions on existing buildings or began with Lego maquettes. As his computer skills improved, he began constructing the buildings from scratch. Once he has arrived at a shape, Dujardin constructs the building’s skin using photographic details from real buildings. <img src="http://payload34.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2994215/imagesCATBUOVX.jpg" width="420" height="420" width_o="420" height_o="420" src_o="http://payload34.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2994215/imagesCATBUOVX_o.jpg" data-mid="15257737" border="0" align="left"/>There is an overall pathos to the images. The buildings appear in isolation from other structures. They look tired. A quasi-Soviet-era patina is applied to prevent the buildings appearing like the glossy renderings used by architects and real estate agents. “The parts I use are often from dull office buildings in Ghent and so they have a kind of sixties or seventies patina,” he says. “They are like architectural monuments that have been lost on the periphery of a city.” <img src="http://payload34.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2994215/imagesCAR8BYDM.jpg" width="600" height="400" width_o="600" height_o="400" src_o="http://payload34.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2994215/imagesCAR8BYDM_o.jpg" data-mid="15257716" border="0" align="left"/> Some critics see Dujardin’s images as advocating an alternative approach to architecture, but he insists that his objective is purely about form. “My interest has always been to explore the sculptural qualities of architecture,” he says. “I don’t have pretensions to design buildings for real. Because they are not designed with a plan, it is only the form that interests me.” This story was first published in Vogue Living Jan/Feb 2012. Click here to download a PDF of the original. Images courtesy of Filip Dujardin and Highlight Gallery. A photographer navigates the realms of the plausible and impossible with fictional architectural ‘photographs’.Filip Dujardin admits he is a frustrated... http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/The-Other-Hemisphere-An-exhibition-of-Australian-design http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/following/madhinchy/The-Other-Hemisphere-An-exhibition-of-Australian-design Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:34:49 +0000 Madeleine Hinchy 2961209 <img src="http://payload33.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2961209/Paulbarberaotherhem.jpg" width="670" height="446" width_o="850" height_o="567" src_o="http://payload33.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2961209/Paulbarberaotherhem_o.jpg" data-mid="15076372" border="0" align="left"/>Curated showcases of national and regional design are a vital part of Milan Design Week – in 2011, an Australian contingent joined the party.“My belief is that the more local designers collaborate on these kinds of projects, the more successful we will all be,” says designer Sarah King, curator of the The Other Hemisphere. Held at Ventura Lambrate during Milan Design Week 2011, the exhibition featured Australian designers and studios Ben McCarthy, Elliat Rich, Emma Elizabeth, Flynn Talbot, Mark Vaarwerk, Blakebrough+King, Daniel Emma and Supercyclers, and is a landmark in the overseas presentation of Australian design. While there has been a consistent Australian presence at recent Milan design weeks – Melbourne’s RMIT has presented showcases of student design, and designers Adam Goodrum, Trent Jansen, Helen Kontouris and Nick Rennie have exhibited work designed for international manufacturers – until now there haven’t been any group showcases of independent Australian designers put together by a single curator. “It takes an awful lot of dedication and commitment.You have to have a sense of wanting to do things for other people,” explains King. Participating designer Elliat Rich observes that it has a lot to do with King’s ingenuity. “Sarah is that rare mix of administrator and practitioner, which means she understands the benefits of both roles and is capable of following through to realisation. And being able to choose work from a whole country, it seems logical that you would end up with a stronger show.” The genesis for an Australian showcase began in 2010, when King began discussions with Margriet Vollenberg and Margo Koning – the founders of Ventura Lambrate, a district for curated design events that had emerged that year – with the exhibition’s title as the starting point. “We thought that phrase, ‘the other hemisphere’, would provide a nice opportunity or framework to talk about the differences, or perceived differences, that might be apparent in work produced in Australia,” says King, who selected designers to participate in the project. Responses varied to the concept, encompassing lighting, textiles, furniture and objects, but were unified by their emphasis on ‘otherness’, defying perceptions of function, experience and reality. It is curious – testament to King’s curatorial prowess – that several visitors asked if the designers were Dutch. “We took it as a compliment,” laughs King. Several designers in the show are now in talks with international manufacturers but facilitating industry connections was an auxiliary aim. “Everyone wants to making a living from being a designer, so that’s in the back of your mind. But I tend not to focus on one outcome. I think by being positive and doing what you want, you will attract people who are interested.” Asked if she sees herself curating an annual showcase of Australian design, King says, “I think with everything I do, once I start, I won’t be able to stop!” That sounds like a yes. This story was first published in Vogue Living July/Aug 2011. Click here to download a PDF of the original story. Curated showcases of national and regional design are a vital part of Milan Design Week – in 2011, an Australian contingent joined the party.“My belief is that... http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/The-Illusionist-Artist-Anna-Kristensen http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/following/madhinchy/The-Illusionist-Artist-Anna-Kristensen Wed, 07 Mar 2012 05:50:21 +0000 Madeleine Hinchy 2946270 <img src="http://payload32.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2946270/HLTAS-2011_039ChrisCourt.jpg" width="473" height="316" width_o="473" height_o="316" src_o="http://payload32.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2946270/HLTAS-2011_039ChrisCourt_o.jpg" data-mid="15044899" border="0" align="left"/>Capturing the ambiguity of two-dimensional painted space in detail, Anna Kristensen challenges perceptions of reality. Patience is one of Anna Kristensen’s virtues. “It’s a matter of being disciplined, not being too caught up in certain areas and seeing a painting as a whole,” the Sydney artist says of her painstaking pursuit of illusionistic detail. But her new works seem a breeze compared with The Indian Chamber, a work she completed last year. The meticulous panoramic oil painting of a section of the Jenolan Caves, an open cave system near Sydney, is perhaps the ultimate expression of the artist’s formal talent. Before this work, Kristensen focused on paintings that played on two dimensional illusion relative to architectural space; it was natural for her to expand her painting into a purpose-built structure – not so much a move off the wall as a reconfiguration of the walls. <img src="http://payload32.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2946270/Untitled-1.jpg" width="389" height="432" width_o="389" height_o="432" src_o="http://payload32.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2946270/Untitled-1_o.jpg" data-mid="15045044" border="0" align="left"/> She researched the history of largescale panoramic paintings, popular in the 19th century; the 360- degree works were painted on the inside of specially designed circular buildings and large cylinders, with controlled conditions that fostered a sense of complete immersion. Traditionally, panoramas look out into open space. “I thought, as a subject, a cave would be interesting as an inversion of that,” she says. “It is a closed view, a natural kind of room. It’s reflexive – it keeps looking back on itself.” Viewers ‘enter’ the painting by stepping into the enclosed space. Inside is a highly detailed rendering of a cave with re-created stalagmites, stalactites and columns. The chamber is a loop without beginning or end. Ambiguity of perception is key. “The illusion, while coming close, can’t be completely believed and it isn’t intended to be,” says Kristensen. “It’s that slippage and what happens in the translations which I find full of potential.” This story was first published in Vogue Living Jan/Feb 2012. Visit here to download a PDF of the original story. Photographs courtesy of Chris Court. Capturing the ambiguity of two-dimensional painted space in detail, Anna Kristensen challenges perceptions of reality. Patience is one of Anna Kristensen’s... http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/Pleasure-Craft-The-Balmain-Boat-Company http://cargocollective.com/madhinchy/following/madhinchy/Pleasure-Craft-The-Balmain-Boat-Company Mon, 20 Feb 2012 03:39:03 +0000 Madeleine Hinchy 2843296 <img src="http://payload27.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2843296/BalmainBoats_0014ChrisCourt.jpg" width="400" height="482" width_o="400" height_o="482" src_o="http://payload27.cargocollective.com/1/6/202283/2843296/BalmainBoats_0014ChrisCourt_o.jpg" data-mid="14450561" border="0" align="left"/>A Sydney designer’s do-it-yourself kit means anyone can float their own boat.To be able to mend, or even build, household items was once common; now many would red-facedly admit their DIY skills are limited to sewing on a button and using an Allen key. Sydney industrial designer Andrew Simpson, of Vert Design, believes it doesn’t have to be that way. “I love the prospect of engaging people with building something with their hands again. Everything is built by someone at some point – it’s about not being afraid to get in there and get something done.” Simpson hopes to inspire people to tackle creative projects with his latest venture – the Balmain Boat Company, a new business producing build-your-own-boat kits. The design of the wooden clinker-built boats is a romanticised blend of ’40s-style rowboat with the contemporary clean lines and neat edges of computer-led wood-cutting. At 2.3 metres, they are big enough to fit three adults but small enough to pop on the roofracks of a small car. Cheaper and better-looking than your average tinny, the boats bring a stylish water lifestyle well within reach. While the prospect of owning your own boat is attractive, the DIY aspect sounds daunting. Simpson, however, is confident he has designed the kit so that the project is easily achievable by even the most unhandy people. “I really believe in inspiring people to make something they think is too hard. And that’s why we chose the boat as a project. It seems impossible at the outset, but we’ve made it very simple. If you can hammer a nail and ice a cake, then you can do this.” Cutting the pieces is the most challenging part of any building project, says Simpson, so all of the 42 plywood pieces in the kit come fully cut. The kit arrives by courier, flat-packed with essentials – nails, sealant and other bits and pieces. Boatbuilders need to bring their own hammer, corking gun, electric drill and marine paint to complete the project. Accessibility was a key consideration. “Through the design process I was thinking ‘Is this stage too awkward? Will they look clumsy?’” says Simpson. “I don’t want someone to look like a goose when they are putting it together!” A growing Facebook community is on hand with tips and the website has videos and an instruction booklet. For those worried about ending up with a boat under water, Simpson cites his business partner, Nicole Steel, who recently built one of the boats. “Nicole is a very intelligent woman, but she didn’t know how to hold a hammer. Everyone said she couldn’t do it. But I showed her the basic skills and she got it done by herself. She then rowed out to Cockatoo Island and hasn’t stopped talking about it. That is what we want to share. I make hundreds of things a year, but nothing really compares to the joy of being out on the water in your own boat.” This story was first published in Vogue Living Sept/Oct 2011. Click here to download a PDF of the original story. Photograph courtesy of Chris Court. A Sydney designer’s do-it-yourself kit means anyone can float their own boat.To be able to mend, or even build, household items was once common; now many would...