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Ideas of possibilities in materials and different cultural experiences dotted the Designersblock exhibition hosted at The Barge House, Oxo Tower Wharf, as an integral part of the just concluded London Design Festival 2015. In its 18th edition this year, Designersblock is an established exhibitor hosting annual design-conscious shows at London and Milan. This year at the London Design Festival, its Barge House venue, which lent itself holistically to the designers, besides the India Pavillion, played host to diverse disciplines like graphic design, jewellery, product, textile, ceramics and fine art, besides raising some all-important thought-provoking areas of interest viz., the role of the humble pencil; the roots of sustainable design; interactive pavement museum among others... We invite you to feast your ocular senses: Silkfelt produces lighting, interior, millinery and fashion products. Designer Yulia Badian works with felt, the original man made fabric and using techniques that have been around for millenia and only wool from rare breeds, silk and soap, she creates these stunning pieces that appear to be creatures taken from fantasy. Charlotte Edey specializes in hand-drawn monochrome illustrations, focussed on the challenge of expressing fluidity and depth with simply pure lines that create a micro-world of structural detail and perspective within the form; her direction dictated as much by process as by concept. British designer, Emily Carter’s scarves and squares begin as a detailed original drawing with experiments in colour and composition leading to the finished design. The products are printed on high quality silk twill, and are hemmed and packaged by hand. Sweden-based textile designer, Johanna Samuelsson specializes in working with the technique of woven shibori and foil print - the interaction between patterned surfaces and light is explored in a textile decoration. The work is a meeting between construction of textiles and treatment of surface and inspired by the sun, how the intense light dances, reflects and glitters over a surface. Jewellery designers Yarden Aizic and Daniella Saraya from Israel; and Ayala Uzan, also a sculptor and painter, depict individualistic strength in their designs. Whilst Yarden’s profiles conform to body shapes; Daniella’s jewellery relies on a technique of “cover-and-expose” and Ayala is out to quest ‘limits’ via the use of fibreglass, epoxy, 295 silver and German silver. Japanese designer Sayoko Shibuya of Sayoko Designs works on making her audience experience the space both - emotionally and physically. Her designs are characterized by minimalism and simplicity. Her range of products in development includes lighting, soft furnishings, kitchenware and more. Landscape//Colour Series 1 and 2 from Sophie Southgate is an on-going exploration of the object and the vessel, in both the contexts of sculpture and functional ceramics. The work moves between the boundaries of art and design, ambiguous in nature and open to interpretation, challenging our preconceptions and understanding of contemporary ceramics. The Parking Bay Museum a project from Fraser Pearston is a museum with a difference. It operates outside the traditional framework of a museum, turning general curiosity towards material footprints of our everyday into an interactive public performance. By borrowing the roadside it seeks to reengage us with the lost and forgotten objects we neglect as we travel through the urban environment. ‘The Secret Life of the Pencil’ is a collaborative project by industrial designer Alex Hammond, and photographer Mike Tinney, and seeks to savour the use of pencils – documenting them in stunning detail, and thereby showing the secrets of their use and revealing an insight into their users: professionals who have defined themselves and their craft with the help of the modest stylus. This collection of pencil images is a direct link back to some of the 20th and 21st centuries’ greatest illustrations, buildings, artworks, photographs, products, make-up designs, graphics, novels, poems, fashion, cartoons and even films. The photo installation that has contributions from stalwarts like David Adjaye, Anish Kapoor, Dame Zandra Rhodes, Philippe Starck and Lord Norman Foster among several others questions the existence of the humble pencil in a technologically driven world. “The humble pencil is found where most of mankind’s greatest achievements begin. But will the touch-screen generation ever feel the pleasure of a freshly sharpened pencil or the frustration of a shattered lead?” Click here to view the images on indiaartndesign.com
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