LDF Diaries 2023: Day Three
Wild Cordage by Ruby Taylor (Native Hands), exhibited as part of Mother Goddess of the Three Realms: Cross-encounters, joining threads (image: courtesy of Wax Atelier).
Day three of Disegno’s time at the 2023 London Design Festival (LDF) takes in a furniture peep show at SCP, self-initiated graduate show from Kingston University alumni, and a celebration of rope making in Vietnamese and British culture.
The Federation of Furniture Fanciers: SCPeep Show (image: SCP, via Instagram).
Pure filth
For those who like their LDF events served up with a generous pinch of mischief, may we suggest a visit to The Federation of Furniture Fanciers: SCPeep Show? Organised by SCP, the exhibition styles itself as a “Closed Curtain Club” – a purported forerunner to peep shows in which “the behind curtain fancying of furniture” could take place, with these spaces only later evolving into spaces for “fanciers of a different kind”. The entire installation is played deliciously straight and was, in fact, only revealed on opening night, having been ingeniously concealed from view during its installation by passing itself off as a fake construction site erected in order to excavate “a site of important archaeological interest and historical significance”. The show is now tucked away behind a red curtain at the back of SCP, which opens up into a boudoir-esque space filled with designs that delight in the double-entendre. Lucy Kurrein’s Sextional upholstered detail of Ronda frames an element of one of her sofa designs in such a way that it bears a pleasing resemblance to a cheeky bum; Michael Marriott’s A Lovely Pair of Knockers (for doors, of course) gleefully seizes the low-hanging fruit with both hands; Carl Clerkin’s Up your under table mounts a mirror onto skate wheels with a long handle to provide the perfect device for peeping at the underside of furniture (a play on upskirting that fits neatly within the universe of the show, but which may, understandably, be felt to be in poor taste by some); and Poppy Booth’s Confessional Bucket is superbly absurd in its kink-infused bucket helmet. The whole enterprise is gloriously camp and infectiously funny (as well, perhaps, as offering a warm-hearted commentary upon the tendency of the design world to fetishise objects), offering a string of ingeniously made, memorable designs. The fact that the exhibition opens with a Victorian-era photograph of a crowd of people, onto whom the participating designers’ heads have been crudely photoshopped, is the pièce de résistance. If there is a funnier, more charming show at this year’s festival, we’d like to see it. That it feels so knowingly honest about the attraction that many in the design world feel towards a well-made object only adds to the appeal.
The Federation of Furniture Fanciers: SCPeep Show: 135-139 Curtain Rd, EC2A 3BX
All On Show, the exhibition developed by Kingston product and furniture graduates (image: Kingston Product & Furniture Graduates 2023).
The final lesson behind the show
Graduate shows are a staple of design weeks and festivals, typically organised by schools to serve as a hybrid celebration-cum-advertisement: a means of celebrating past students’ accomplishments, while also encouraging future students to enrol. As far as a promotion for a course’s strength goes, the Kingston University Product and Furniture exhibition at Hoxton Arches, All on Show, doesn’t disappoint. The space is filled with a range of thoughtful, well-made projects. There are pieces of classic product design, such as Tom Clark’s Linear Clock that reimagines the typology by moving towards a motorised ruler-like face that moves vertically to tell the time; critical projects such as Jana Landolt’s Therapy Objects, a series of two-person garments that playfully encourage interaction, including a cap with a long connected peak that forces intense eye contact; and projects that fall in between the two, such as Honey Birch’s Little Chairs, Little Conversations, which presents a duo of charmingly simple plywood chairs inspired by a Chinese furniture archetype, presented alongside filmed interviews with Chinese adoptees sat on the chairs and reflecting on how they navigate their lives in the UK. Each of the projects on display are strong in their own right, but what makes the show all the more impressive is that it was not organised by Kingston University itself, but by the graduating class. Together, the students undertook the surprising amount of work it takes to deliver a show: from fundraising and approaching sponsors to securing a venue; from inviting guests and press to designing and building the exhibition; from writing the captions and wall texts to organising the transport; from managing budgets to coordinating a large group of people. This less glamorous side of a designer’s job is something that students aren’t often exposed to. Despite being less fun than being in a workshop, the administrative know-how needed to present a public facing work on budget and to deadline are key skills for setting up a business or working as part of a larger studio. Putting it all on show, perhaps, acts as a final lesson for Kingston’s graduates in stepping from university into the industry. It is also an opportunity to take promotion into their own hands, showcasing their work and skillsets to future employers in a manner that is separate from the university’s voice (even if Kingston University comes off well too). Well done and good luck to these graduates.
All on Show: Hoxton Arches, Arch 402 Cremer Street, E2 8HD
Bench by Nice Projects, exhibited as part of Mother Goddess of the Three Realms: Cross-encounters, joining threads (image: courtesy of Wax Atelier)
A rope makers’ celebration
Mother Goddess of the Three Realms: Cross-encounters, joining threads is a delightful show, well worth the detour from the heart of the Shoreditch Design Triangle. An exhibition exploring rope, rope making, the social dimensions of craft, and commonalities between the UK and Vietnam, it is generous in its detail, range of work, research, and the studios it highlights, all while staying within the tight parameters of rope. The show has been funded by the British Council as part of its UK/Viet Nam Season 2023 and led by WAX Atelier (London) along with the Blue H’mong craftswomen of Pa Co village (Mai Chau Province, Vietnam). Looking at rope from plants to weaving to end use, the show is split into three distinct but intersecting areas that are divided by the three realms (Water, Forest and Heaven) taken from the exhibition title – Mother Goddess of the Three Realms – a belief system from Vietnam listed as an article of UNESCO intangible cultural heritage. Water takes the shape of a long room filled with varieties of fibre and rope making research, including a dog leash made by Sanne Visser (UK) from human hair; hand braided button loops and drawstrings by KILOMET109 (Vietnam), a studio founded by designer and artist Thao Vu; and huge loops of silk braids and tassels from Brian Turner Trimmings (UK). Forest, by contrast, takes these techniques and uses them in larger outdoor artworks, while Heaven features two films, Domestic Spinner by Yibeng Chen and Mother Goddess of the Three Realms by Rocio Chacon and Yesenia Thibault Picazo, which display an archive of rope making techniques and capture the creation of one of the artworks present from the Forest section respectively. The result is a show with a strong red thread running throughout (if you’ll forgive the pun), but which also allows for moments of diversion. Moreover, the show’s attention to detail and reflections on the social and spiritual aspects of craft practices reward lingering. For Hanoi based readers, meanwhile, a companion show will run during Viet Nam Design Week later this month.
Mother Goddess of the Three Realms: Cross-encounters, joining threads: Centre 151, 151 Whiston Road, E2 8GU