“Life with/in Objects” is an unconventional exhibition experience, born from the necessity of current circumstances, that has been found and conceptualised by curator Farah Siddiqui and design aficionado Natasha Mehta. Home is the inevitable locus of everyday design; it is a default museum. It is the place where we curate our lives. Our homes are filled with objects; they serve as the primary setting for our daily lives. We choose to organise it with certain specificities from the past or present by making or borrowing our own or receiving others. Often, we exhibit these objects in the public domain of our domesticities, or if they are private, we visit them occasionally in solitude.
Looking at objects through the lens of design allows for an archaeology of curiosity. How a specific thing has been made, what ideas have travelled and crystallised into it, how it has exchanged places and people, what are its future trajectories, and what will be its eventual place in humankind—all such questions may allow us to initiate a dialogue into the secret lives of things. In their critical everyday encounter, designers are able to communicate intimately with objects as well as swerve their destinies in new directions. Therefore, designers may often find themselves at the heart of such discourse around objects, for they are active agents in their catalysis. Designers may help us look at ordinary things in new ways by shifting registers of perception and interpretation. Only if we were to hack into these non-verbal exchanges, we harness codes through which we could script or situate our everyday histories.
Click here to read the complete curatorial note.
Celebrating the centenary of Uruguayan main poetess Juana de Ibarbourou’s Las Lenguas de Diamante was the starting point for a collection of furniture. The challenge was to materialise a piece of design not from something visual or physical, but instead from poetry. Shapes, colours, textures and materials where delineated from an interpretation, emotions and feelings. “Lumbro” is a collection of pendant lights and flower holders that gives shape to “The Little Flame” poem. The poem refers to the concept of love and passion between a man and a woman, translated into the figure of a warm flame. Straight lines in combination with the curves, are the means with which this design represents the essence of the man and the woman. The hardness and darkness of the burnt wood, in combination with the fragility and delicateness of the light rattan, made the perfect combination to represent masculinity and the femininity. Simplicity and elegance are the main concepts in this design. Light shaped in different forms is the protagonist in this lyrical interpretation. Lumbro is made with Duglas Fir wood, rattan fibres and bronze details and entirely produced in Uruguay.
“Can you tell what this object is? Does it matter?” stated design duo Rana Haddad & Pascal Hachem. “This object has been lying on the centre table in our workshop, which we refer to as our kitchen—a very rough finish, all in one piece, and one material: black steel. From one end, its shape reminds us of scooping, but only scooping and not spooning. However, there was a sharp end that could easily pierce through a 17.9 cm-long element, with two extremes elevated from the surface of the table—moving from a smooth circular section to an elliptical one, then flattening it through a hammering process, leaving the edge as rough as it is thin. For us, this object exists as an expression of the process of its creation. Furthermore, its placement on the central table among other objects has blurred the distinction between the object and its function, giving it a new function for each visitor.”
“This sculpture is something I can’t let go of.” I made it early in the years I started to work in basketry, and it holds a special place in my heart. I moved away from working in this medium a few years ago, and most of these pieces have sold, but when I am asked if I am willing to sell them, a sadness pops up, and I just can’t do it. It represents the love I have for living in Los Angeles. My home looks out to the mountains, and this piece reminds me of the beauty of California. I started working in clay in 2008, at a time when there was a lot of change and uncertainty. I had closed a business I had for 10 years and had no idea what my future would be. I started to experiment with mixed media and developed a way of working with clay and basketry that used negative space and tension to create sculptures that were both strong and soft. Some of them were a way to complete broken vessels, and some just went off on their own, like this piece. “I wasn’t aware of the end shape or where it was going, but it ended up here, and I love it.”
