Design Digest: LDF 2011
Lola Lely, Kinetic Frenetic, made from Fendi Selleria leather for LDF. Photo Wallpaper.
I’m clearly getting old, as I’m starting this post with a grumble. Crowds and queues: these increasingly seem to be key components to experiencing the London Design Festival, an unwelcome trend that nevertheless illustrates the growing popularity, and scale, of this exuberant and eclectic festival. In its ninth year, and spread over nine days, LDF now encompasses such as Origin: The Contemporary Craft Fair and Tent London, both mammoth events in their own right and each well worth a visit. Except I didn’t quite make it to any of these - oops. With just two days in London, the race was on to take in as much as possible: what follows is just a fraction of the great things seen.
Judging from exhibits across this behemoth, some trends show no signs of stopping. One of these is the neo-vernacular aesthetic, last year seen in exhibits such as Faye Toogood’s Assemblage 1, the result of the stylist-turned-designer’s first venture into furniture design.
Faye Toogood, Assemblage 1, 2010. Photo Faye Toogood.
This year it could be in evidence amongst the likes of Another Country and Max Lamb’s delectable new pieces, included as part of Gallery Fumi’s Studio Ware show.
Max Lamb, Woodware, on show at Gallery Fumi. Photo Dezeen.
Made entirely from standardised sizes of dowel rods, Lamb conceived the furniture to be easy enough for any artisan to make. Lamb’s furniture illustrates how designers’ increasing interest in production not only manifests itself in the dispersal of manufacture to other authors, but also raises the question of the level of skill available amongst these makers in a post-industrial society, be they professionals or amateurs.
Lamb and others might be continuing to mine the potential of the modern pastoral (and no bad thing for it), but Toogood for one has moved on, at least judging on the basis of her Delicate Interference: Assemblage 3 collection, on show at Phillips de Pury’s new Mayfair gallery.
Faye Toogood, dressing table for Assemblage 3, 2011. Photo Faye Toogood.
Toogood’s work has grown conceptually and in complexity since her first show last year. This faintly surreal collection is a considered take on the current vogue for nature and materiality in craft and design practice. Inspired by insects’ dual use of iridescence for its qualities of attraction and protection, Toogood has endowed her metal furniture with an oily, pearlescent surface but also designed objects, such as this dressing table, that close in on themselves to form a barrier against the world outside.
Toogood isn’t the only designer to christen a new gallery. After several nomadic years Libby Sellers has found new, permanent digs in a gallery just off Oxford Street. The inaugural show is dedicated to Studio Formafantasma, the Sicilian-born Eindhoven based duo that continue to impress with their designs that speak the language of both craft and conceptualism.
On display were two examples of their work; Moulding Tradition, first presented as part of their Design Academy Eindhoven thesis project in 2009, and Colony , a series of tapestries commissioned by the Gallery and the Audax Textielmuseum in Tilburg and first shown at Design Miami/Basel.
Formafantasma, Moulding Tradition, 2009. Photograph Luisa Zanzani.
Studio Formafantasma, Colony - Asmara, mohair and mixed media blankets, 2011. Photo Design Week.
Together, the collections explore impact of Italian imperialism on Africa in the early twentieth century, and the influx of migrants that continues today. Using forms, materials and styles inspired by these cross-cultural encounters, Studio Formafantasma demonstrate an intelligently politicised aspect to their work, one welcome in the face of the predominance of novelty and spectacle (as ever, McGuirk’s Guardian column is on the money on this) in the LDF.
Undeniably spectacular: Amanda Levete Architects, Timber Wave.
Photo London Design Guide.
That isn’t to say that I’m not a fan of the festival - quite the opposite in fact. Rather, LDF’s increasing popularity and public presence gives it a platform to promote design as a tool for social change and commentary, rather than the purveyor of commodities, like no other. Admittedly, while galleries such as those of Phillips de Pury and Libby Sellers are ultimately geared at a restricted market, it is in smaller, more independent spaces such as these, but also the likes of the KK Outlet with its Object Abuse auction/exhibition and even luxury brand Fendi’s patronage of RCA students such as Lola Lely above, that some of the most exciting talent is being shown and supported. It seems that at this year’s festival, smaller is better. And less crowded.
