Form&Seek London Design Fair2017
Form&Seek will be part of Dutch Pavilion at London Design Fair on 21-24 September 2017
Form&Seek exhibitions always show a consideration to new crafts, material and processes.
With this upcoming show Form&Seek explores the theme of "Openness" where we focus on what designers with a vision of across borders and cultures, make and design in order to shift attitudes and cultures for the a more inclusive future. Form&Seek explores the idea of Dutch design, not through a national lens but as an attitude and way of thinking.
For the first time ever Form&Seek launches its own collection during London Design Festival as well as a producing and selling platform, enabling consumers and retailers to purchase original and innovative crafted goods from a curated collection founded and run by designers.
The Form&Seek collection focuses on new developed processes and contemporary, globally local craft techniques. Interesting, innovative materials and processes play a key role in the pieces by Form&Seek. Each item tells a story through the way it has been made or the impact it has on our daily lives.
Our new collection expands on a wide range of crafted products from conventional products prototyped with new technologies to products that play with natural formations and uses of material. Each thought provoking, poetic design object has a strong character and personality with the personal mark of the maker.
Rock & Oyster
Designer:
Material:
Kawther Alsaffar
Brass, Copper, Painted Glass
Rock & Oyster is a new lighting collection designed in a remote collaboration between Salsabeel Amin in Egypt, and Kawther Alsa ar in Kuwait. The lighting xtures celebrate and contrast the rough dual-casting with the delicacy of the hand-painted, blown-glass, developed with local artisans in both nations.
The objects expose the expanding opportunities provided by combining a thorough understanding of traditional craft, with technology and design. A material-driven approach, supports the local abilities, through simple and minimal interventions in form. This suggests an open dialogue between the 3D printed digital fabrication of the Oyster, with the rough nature of the found rocks.
The pieces also highlight the similarities between the craft and material cultures in both nations. Kuwait and Egypt have a natural trade route due to their proximity, and exchange in craft opportunities. Both nations have historically engrained labor-intensive craft processes. However, the creation of a class gap between labor and wealth in Kuwait created a migration of craft knowledge from Egypt to Kuwait since the 1950’s, as Egyptian artisans looked for new opportunities in a developing Oil-rich nation.
The crafts in Kuwait and Egypt have an overlapping but varied evolution in response to the craftsmen’s assumed local needs, due to consumer pressure for low-cost, false-luxury goods. Most of the craftsmen and materials used in the dual-casting process in Kuwait are in-fact from Egypt. But there is a severe lack in the craftsmen’s ingrained life-long knowledge to meet the needs for quality and changing local culture. The two individual designers interventions in education, design, technique, and quality control over the years, only allow the pieces to be made across the two nations. The outcome embraces the pressure of production adversity. A symbol of the cross-pollination of the two sister nations.