POST FOSSIL
Introduction
Time has come for extreme change.
Society is ready to break away from last century for good. To break with creative conventions, theoretic rules and stigmas that now are questioned, challenged and broken. To break with a materialistic mentality replacing it with the materialisation of modest earth-bound and recomposed matter.
In the aftermath of the worst financial crisis in decades, a period of glamorous and streamlined design for design’s sake comes to an end.
A new generation of designers retrace their roots, refine their earth and research their history, sometimes going back to the beginning of time. In this process, they form and formulate design around exactly these natural and sustainable materials, favouring timber, hide, pulp, fibre, earth and fire; like contemporary cavemen, they reinvent shelter, redesign tools and manmade machines, and conceptualise archaic rituals for a more modest, contented and contained lifestyle. Like a Fred Flintstone of tomorrow.
The animal world will keep invading and transforming the life of humans represented in a more abstract and less narrative manner.
Skins and furs are becoming dominant materials animated by organic form and skeleton structures.
Our relation to all living organisms is at stake.
Therefore humans will share and care for each other.
Soon the world will discover that we are all family.
Ecology and sustainability will no longer be enough.
Primitive matter and organic shapes will embody a need of man longing for a more meaningful and ritualistic relationship with earth and the elements.
Resulting in a revival of animism.
Therefore designers create brut and raw shapes that resemble totemic termite mounds, honeycomb shapes, spider web laces and timber structures; at times incorporating biotechnology into the making process
to inspire design systems for the future.
Bone structures give quality to pre-historic dwellings and millennial designs imitating the organic process of growth. Hand-blown glass and hand-thrown pottery will dominate the table of the future, presenting even slower food with forgotten vegetables and local and seasonal produce.
Chairs are wobbly on their legs and lamps are overing in the air.
Pebbles are scattered in space, landscaping the world
of interior.
Nature is a dominant ingredient in this movement, although no longer used in a naïve and aspiring ecological language, but as a mature philosophy fit
for a newer age. Raising the questions that need to be raised.
Can we do with less to become more?
Can design have a soul and therefore be animated?
Can man find a more meaningful way to consume?
Can we break with the past and reinvent the future?
In general, materials will be matte and humble, however the earth and its hidden riches also invites this generation to employ minerals, alloys and crystals; adding lustre and sometimes even sheen to these fossil-like concepts and constructions. At times these designs will echo the essence of the arte povera movement which is bound to make a revival – soon.
ATELIER VAN LIESTHOUT
Family Lamp, 2007
courtesy Carpenters Workshop Gallery, London
Transcending the contemporary art, design and architecture disciplines, Atelier Van Lieshout was founded by Joep van Lieshout, an artist based in Rotterdam whose work speaks through ironic humor, at times as dark as the black silhouettes he makes, yet all the while celebrating everyday life. A recent series of body-shaped sculptures that function as objects included this lamp, materializing a family of form in archaic style and permitting an element of what he describes as the “absence of design”.
JOCHEM DE WIT
Raw Tableware, 2009
The contemporary designer embraces the use of multiple materials as diverse as recomposed concrete, recycled glass and bioplastic. Presented in fundamental shapes, these newly-reclaimed materials have age-old patinas akin to archaeological finds from a distant culture.
LONNY VAN RYSWYCK
Drawn from Clay, 2006
A frosted yellow cup from Brunssum, a shiny dark brown from Woerden, a rough terra cotta from Gilze-Rijen… A stunning variety of ethnic local color is derived by sampling the soil of various parts of the Netherlands to explore important contemporary notions of origin and identity.
ARIK LEVY
Rock Fusion (Medium), 2007
That the rock would become such a keystone symbol of the landscaping movement in design could not have been imagined by Arik Levy, whose faceted nuggets are the most iconic. Suitable as stools or simply as sculptures, these reflective boulders come in mirrored metallic finishes to elevate the interior garden.
CHEN CHUN HAO 陳俊豪
A Trigger for Imagination, 2006
This table’s creation shows a combination of formal western surrealism and Asian crafts techniques and materials, bridging the two cultures into one being and previewing a “bio-logical” time when designers will aspire to grow form from nature.
JULIA LOHMANN
Belinda, Els & Sigga, 2005
By incorporating the narrative shape of a cow into iconic benches, the designer reminds us not to forget the living being behind the material used. Embedding lively characteristics into conventionally inanimate objects (they even have their own passports!), Julia Lohmann remarkably illustrates that in the future, design will have soul.
MAX LAMB
Bronze Poly Chair, 2007
Using an interesting technique that Max Lamb refers to as “lost foam” (akin to the lost wax technique traditionally used in casting metal objects), each of these sheep-like chairs are individually sculpted in polystyrene before being “slaughtered” in molten bronze that is poured into their mold.
EMIEL VAN BOEKEL
Artificial Mammoth, 2009
A fictional suspended carcass that is able to reveal its inner gizzards by being turned inside out; this playful seating design connects to our archaic roots by making a humorous comparison to the carnal way man hunted in prehistoric times in order to survive.
PIEKE BERGMANS
Crystal Virus (chair, basket, table & stool), 2007
Interested in the blurred dimension at which art and design converge, when designer and industry interact, and where blown glass and furniture meet, Pieke Bergmans’ collection of viral interventions are each unique and personal. The bulbous forms of liquid glass sear the wooden surfaces on which they are infected, taking possession of the existing design and its history, and creating a new interpretation of the object that possesses a charged sense of balance.
MARIA ROOSEN
For the Strongest Man, 1985
The voluptuous proportions of Maria Roosen’s prolific oeuvre illustrate a studied journey in form. A master of glass blowing, welding and woodwork, her oversized artworks envelop the viewer in a sculptural world that is as narrative as it is impressive.
JULIEN CARRETERO
Drag (Vases & Pillar), 2009
By using the same industrial drag process that is commonly used for creating ornamental cornices, semi-circular shapes are aligned on the central axe of an apparatus to form two raw halves that are then joined. This plaster technique allows for endless variations of chunky totems to be produced in this action-packed method of making form.
MAAIKE ROOZENBURG
Vaetwerk, 2008
An alchemist’s ode to early medieval pottery. The designer wants to bring back the origin of the preparation of food to the contemporary kitchen with three basic ancient elements: the jug, the bowl and the cooking pot. Three multifunctional tools to pour, blend, cool, drink, knead and bake. These pre-industrial archetypes are simple, robust, functional and made by hand. Without words they tell through their spouts, grips and ears how they want to be used.
KARIN FRANKENSTEIN
Cow Dung Shelf & Chair, 2008
karin_frankenstein@hotmail.com
A mix of clay, sand and cow dung resurrects an ancient building material once used in primitive yet performant dwellings; its natural hardening qualities liberating this ceramic designer from the size restrictions of her kiln, to forge and expand into innovative and monumental form.
GUUS VAN LEEUWEN
Domestic Animals
(Cervus Elaphus, Vulpus Lagopus & Ovis Aries), 2008
Designers today are interested in reinventing domestic products; illustrated best in this narrative collection of animal shapes acting as radiators, and designed to remind consumers about a time when people lived above their livestock in order to profit from their animals’ heat. Comforting, their savage skins are filled with wheat in order to retain warmth when taken away to bed on a chilly night.
BOAZ COHEN & SAYAKA YAMAMOTO
Mixed Animals Polygon, 2009
This design duo are the Fred and Wilma Flintstone of contemporary design, embracing archaic mono-colored shapes, such as in these animals, to narrate stories through friendly and iconic sculptural pieces.
TANJA SAETER
Evolving II, 2010
Glass has the flexibility and sensibility of the pen and is able to give form to writing, translating human movement into abstract forms. Between graffiti and calligraphy, Tanja Saeter’s emotive body of work is inspired by the evolution of microscopic organisms. Written in fluid expressive gestures that cover the walls, their forms vary depending on the way they are layered and hung.
FERDINAND SEBASTIAAN & MALOU VERHAREN
Floating Garments, 2009
Deer, sheep and goat hide are used to create bloated sculptural garments based on “globular” silhouettes; round shapes without a beginning or end. Finished by hand-painting, these fashions are fit for a future world where cloning and biosynthesis will leave their mark and influence our culture.
ARIK LEVY
Rock Fusion (Medium), 2007
That the rock would become such a keystone symbol of the landscaping movement in design could not have been imagined by Arik Levy, whose faceted nuggets are the most iconic. Suitable as stools or simply as sculptures, these reflective boulders come in mirrored metallic finishes to elevate the interior garden.
MAARTEN BAAS
Clay Furniture
(floor fan, dining chairs, coffee table), 2010
collection of Lidewij Edelkoort, Paris
Design Miami’s Designer of the Year 2009, Maarten Baas has become an early and influential player of the Post-Fossil movement, burning his way to fame over the last decade with a series of designs called Smoke. His intuitive approach to form is once more illustrated in the Clay Furniture collection; usually produced in bright primary colors, this especially commissioned series of wobbly pieces expresses the important use of natural pigments in various arts & crafts colors giving the work an even more organic origin.
Nacho Carbonell
Evolution
(One Man Chair, The Bench & Lover’s Chair), 2008
Nacho Carbonell engages himself to recycle the paper publications that invade our lives on a daily basis; collecting them by color, blending them to pulp and transforming them into sculptural refuges in which to hide and be seen. These organic cocoons have become contemporary sanctuaries; icons of a movement towards a more archaic and abstract sense of design.
Nacho Carbonell
Hot Kettles, 2008
A bulbous kettle has been roughly molded to provide hovering irregular shapes in three materials: bronze, aluminum and porcelain.
POST FOSSIL IN HOLON
Until april 30, 2011 Post Fossil Excaving 21 st century creation is in Israel
in the beautiful Design Museum Holon built by Ron Arad.