LDF Diaries 2023: Day Four
A detail of the Herbarium chandelier, designed by Mária Čulenová-Hostinová’s for Lasvit (image: Mark Cocksedge).
It’s day four of Disegno’s time at the 2023 London Design Festival (LDF), which features stops at Art Practice Studio’s Play, the Material Matters trade fair, and Lasvit’s herbal chandelier, suspended within Sketch.
Playground by Optical Arts, part of Art Practice Studio’s Play (image:courtesy of Optical Arts).
Adult Play
First you walk past a window display that performs a magic trick; then you enter a courtyard that hosts a board of visual puns; next you pass by a series of brightly coloured photographs; and finally you arrive in a dark room with four spotlit models of teeny tiny playgrounds and projections on the wall. Approaching the models, you might appreciate their precise details – the tiny swings that rock in the wind of your movement, the perfectly crafted curve of the slides, the smoothness of the all-white paint. You might also notice that the plinths have what look like turning tables built into them, and so tentatively reach out and begin swivelling the model around, the projections on the wall beginning to move as you realise that it all connects. The playgrounds are being filmed from above and projected as they spin, and slowly you piece together that the play equipment and the shadows they cast are arranged to create letters when viewed at the correct angle. Finally, you see (spoiler) that they spell out “PLAY” in the projections. This is Play, an exhibition showcasing individual works from Art Practice Studio, a group of practitioners made up of Dan Tobin Smith, Optical Arts, Maria Lax and Daniel Eatock. The show is enticing in the way it undermines traditional rules of exhibitions - you are allowed to touch (some) of what is displayed (gently, of course), and the captions are positioned quite far away from their corresponding objects or else a little hidden, forcing visitors to work harder to piece together what it going on, rather than relying on simply being told. It is momentarily discombobulating, the sense of which is heightened by the subdued colour palette and pared back displays that seem to contradict the garish colours and large geometric shapes that the industry typically defaults to in its exploration of the theme of play. Instead, the four exhibitors invite the audience to engage with what one might describe as a mature form of play, with the results delightfully calm and satisfying. There is a sense that the designers are playing with what their practices are and how they work through self-initiated projects that blur the boundaries of typography, lighting design, graphic design, installation design, 3D storytelling, communication, animation, model making, photography and more. The show gently invites us to entertain ourselves and while doing so to entertain the idea that purposeful play can be useful as a mode of practice.
Play: Art Practice, 148-150 Curtain Road, London, EC2A 3AT
Mária Čulenová Hostinová’s Herbarium chandelier for Lasvit, installed at Sketch (image: Mark Cocksedge).
A gilded edge
Where you display a product during a design week is key: displaying a product within an existing interior or else solo in a white cube space heavily alters how an object is perceived. Czech glassware brand Lasvit, for example, is using LDF to display its Herbarium chandelier at London restaurant Sketch as one of three installations making up the restaurants's Crafted Wonder exhibition. Sketch is well known for embracing highly stylised aesthetics (its Gallery room was redesigned by Yinka Shonibare and India Mahdavi in 2022, for instance), with diners coming as much for the interiors as they do for the food. A covetable location, then, for a brand to show its wares. In this context, Lasvit’s chandelier has been installed within The Glade, a botanically inspired dining room reminiscent of Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Swing (1767), with the Herbarium chandelier hanging centrally in the room. Mária Čulenová-Hostinová, Lasvit's chief designer, first developed the work in 2020, creating it by pouring molten glass over dried debris collected from the forest floor. The result is a trace pattern of leaves, twigs and buds that are formed within droplet shaped glass pendants. These impressions have previously been left clear, whereas in the case of the work installed in The Glade they have now been coated in gold. Herbarium was developed during one of Lasvit's regular open creative days that the brands runs for its in-house design team, allowing designers to get hands on and experimental with glass, but has since become one of the brand's “Icons”: larger installations that can be made bespoke to order. This year, Lasvit is presenting Herbarium in a gold colourway and, as such, looked to a suitably indulgent location to present it. The gilded Herbarium certainly feels at home in Sketch’s Rococo-esque Glade, although the location also means that visitors who purely come to view the exhibition rather than dine may feel less so, mindful of the need to navigate waiters, diners and cleaners during service hours.
Crafted Wonder: Sketch, 9 Conduit Street, W1S 2XG
Material Change by Pearson Lloyd, exhibited as part of Material Matters (image: courtesy of Pearson Lloyd).
The heart of the matter
Trade fairs are typically a slog. The format is an important economic driver for the design industry, but the presence of countless identikit company booths, all set up in an anonymous exhibition hall, is hardly likely to set pulses races. Hats off to Grant Gibson and William Knight, then, who seem to have accomplished the impossible with their second edition of Material Matters: a trade fair that is actually pleasurable to explore. Hosted in the Bargehouse at Oxo Tower Wharf (never underestimate the power of a semi-derelict building to elevate visitor interest), Material Matters is, as its name suggests, a fair that places an emphasis on work encompassing material experimentation and ideas around the circular economy. The fair is a commercial entity rather than a rigorous exhibition, but the venture has clearly benefitted from a level of curation and considered selection that is rare in this arena (and which is aided by its relatively manageable size of 54 exhibitors). There are fascinating displays from individual designers (Yair Neuman’s ongoing work with discarded spectacle lenses is worth seeking out); considered brand presentations (furniture brand Mater’s display of its Matek material, formed from plastic waste and coffee bean shells); and laudable research projects, not least Gareth Neal and The New Raw’s exploration of 3D-printing woven structures using recycled polymers, and The Tyre Collective’s investigation into collecting and reutilising rubber particles produced through the wear of vehicle tyres on roads. There are moments in the fair in which visitors may feel sceptical about the industry-wide applications of some of the experimental materials on offer, but attention has also been paid to more practical design initiatives. A highlight is undoubtedly Pearson Lloyd's clear-headed Material Change installation, which breaks down practical steps that designers can make in working more sustainably. Sections such as “Design with mono-materials” and “Design on a longer timeframe” offer sound advice, and are backed up with case studies, reflections, and data from the studio’s own work. It amounts to a well-argued and illuminating presentation, which never overreaches in its claims, but instead provides a compelling snapshot of the field as it stands (or could stand in the near future). It is a fine standard bearer for the wider fair, which deserves credit for spiking its commercial purpose with critical interest and engagement. As the fair grows, which it surely will, let’s hope that the mix can be maintained – it is, after all, a winning formula.
Material Matters: Bargehouse, Oxo Tower Wharf, Barge House St, SE1 9PH