Milantrace Moment with GamFratesi at MINDCRAFT16.

Inside MIDCRAFT16 curated by GamFratesi during Milan Design Week 2016. Photography © Nick Hughes/ Yellowtrace.

The beautiful setting for MIDCRAFT16, set inside the historical Circolo Filologico Milanese. Photography © Nick Hughes/ Yellowtrace.

Dana Tomic Hughes/ Yellowtrace with Stine Gam & Enrico Fratesi at MIDCRAFT16. Photography © Nick Hughes/ Yellowtrace.

Observing GamFratesi’s MIDCRAFT16 installation from above. Photography © Nick Hughes/ Yellowtrace.

Related Posts:
MINDCRAFT15 Exhibition Concept and Curation by GamFratesi.
At Home with GamFratesi in Copenhagen.
Interview with Stine Gam & Enrico Fratesi of GamFratesi.

Left: The Office by benandsebastian. A bureau designed specifically for the Museum of Nothing, which is an ongoing work by benandsebastian. The bureau is constructed as a place of work and also as an incomplete system of thinking. Like other parts of the Museum of Nothing, its potential lies in what is projected into it: the promise of ideas that might fill its empty frames and vacant spaces. A source of inspiration for the piece is the following paragraph by the Danish existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: A thinker erects an immense building, a system, a system which embraces the whole of existence and world history etc. – and if we contemplate his personal life, we discover to our astonishment this terrible and ludicrous fact, that he himself personally does not live in this immense high-vaulted palace, but in a barn alongside it, or in a dog kennel, or at the most a porter’s lodge. If one were to take the liberty of calling his attention to this by a single word, he would be offended. For he has no fear of being under a delusion, if only he can get the system completed – by means of the delusion. Materials: Teak, brass, leather, rubber, felt, ceramic.

Right: Heavy Stack (Extrude) by Maria Bruun & Anne Dorthe Vester. An experimental series of objects that explore the potentials of form, materials and aesthetics. The objects are made of hollow extruded ceramic rings stacked on top of each other, almost like bricks, around a load-bearing oak construction. The main structural inspiration came from architectural principles and structures, while the materials and the finish point more to furniture making and crafts. The function is not the goal here – instead the project served as a source of inspiration for form, construction and materials. The production process combines elements from industrial production and crafts: The ceramic rings were made on a brickworks extrusion machine fitted with a special nozzle, while the resulting tubes were shaped into circular or oval rings by hand. The series is part of the duo’s ongoing exploration of the potentials of ceramic elements as a structural component in furniture, combined in this case with a new-found fascination with the process and potentials of extrusion. Materials: stoneware, oak, brass.

Photography MINDCRAFT / Tuala Hjarnø.

Left: Tension by Christina Schou Christensen. The dishes in the ’Tension’ series explore the surface tension of glaze as its interacts with the properties of the stoneware clay, the shape of the dish, the intense heat in the kiln and, not least, gravity. The precise outcome of the process thus depends on a variety of factors, including the amount and viscosity of the glaze itself. Variations in these factors determine whether the glaze will slide off the ceramic surface, creating new forms without the maker’s touch, or whether it binds to the clay, forming thick ripples and waves, as it is pulled this way and that. These experiments with the surface tension of glaze follow as a natural next step after Christina Schou Christensen’s earlier projects where she experimented with the viscosity of glaze. She carefully shapes and determines factors that she expects will lead to a given expression, but in true experimental fashion, the actual expression is determined out of reach, behind locked doors in the hot inferno of the kiln. As a framework for the surprising and radical shapes that sometimes emerge, she uses the familiar form of the dish, which we recognise from traditional ceramics.

Right: Deal with it by Rosa Tolnov Clausen. A tangible visualisation of Rosa Tolnov Clausen’s overall method and design vision. The key focus in this process is the intersection between the carefully planned and the unpredicted, the results that emerge when systematic and analytical approaches are subjected to random factors and events. For this project, Rosa Tolnov Clausen defined five design parameters – basic weave, decoration, base colour(s), decoration colour(s) and composition – which she then combined with yarn in fifteen preselected colours in a randomised process. The random selection process compelled her to use combinations of colours, patterns and techniques she might not otherwise have picked. By disrupting and tripping up her systematic working process, this element of chance brought out new and unexpected results by forcing Rosa Tolnov Clausen to deal with it and explore new solutions and expressions. As a further challenge to her creative process, she used a basic hand-loom, which only allows for a fairly limited set of variations, thus further highlighting the expressive role of basic elements such as colours and yarn quality.

Photography MINDCRAFT / Tuala Hjarnø.

Left: Primal Pottery Project by Ole Jensen. In Ole Jensen’s creative interpretation, the theme of this year’s exhibition – In My Mind Craft – simultaneously engages mind and intellect, body, material and object. In his hands, the theme has found an expression in shared human symbols, signs and references with inspiration from early pottery. The resulting objects are made in red clay, and on his potter’s wheel, new and surprising expressions have been allowed to take form in the moment. In original cultures, utilitarian objects are often perceived and depicted as a body or a head, complete with ears, feet or legs. As animated beings. In this series, Ole Jensen has returned to these early roots of ceramics, rediscovering and giving life to a set of primal forms that almost seem to draw breath – ready to reach out and find their place in our surroundings. Materials: red clay and glaze.

Right: Denmark on my Mind by Nicholas Nybro. A celebration of light as the defiant contrast to a dark background. In response to a feeling that fear and alienation is affecting the political climate and changing the Denmark he knows, Nicholas Nybro chooses to embrace his Danish identity and celebrate the qualities he is proud of. In the two pieces that make up Denmark on my Mind, this is represented by a symbolic celebration of idyllic summer evenings in Denmark where the light gradually shimmers and fades but never quite gives way to darkness. The two pieces transform the body’s silhouette, as dress and body fuse into one and are transformed into a sculpture. The main material is raffia, which is sewn onto the fabric in dense rows and subsequently cut into shape, like a hairdresser working on a hairdo. The raffia is combined with striped cotton fabric, reminiscent of traditional peasant shirts. In combination with the sculpted raffia, the overall effect sparks associations to fragrant hay, harvest time and idyllic summer. Materials: raffia, cotton.

Photography MINDCRAFT / Tuala Hjarnø.

Left: Stafa by Vibeke Fonnesberg Schmidt. Geological formations in the form of hexagonal basalt rocks on the west coast of Scotland provided part of the inspiration for the shape and colour scheme of these one-off floor lamps. Apart from the geological inspiration, their expression was also influenced by modernism and, as Vibeke Fonnesberg Schmidt explains, even the feel of the original Star Wars films. Each of the six components that make up the lamps consists of two sheets of partially overlapping laser-cut Plexiglas in different colours and translucencies, either opalised or fully transparent. The hexagonal structures are held together with brass fittings and combined in clusters of three or more.Material: Plexiglas in various degrees of translucence, brass.

Right: Breathe by Akiko Kuwahata. A chest of drawers with a glass panel decorated with a frosted pattern of slanting stripes. A similar pattern has been cut into the sides of the wooden drawers but angled in the opposite direction. When a drawer is pulled out, this decorative device creates a fascinating visual dance, as the stripes move towards and past each other, flickering in and out of contact. This interactive dance is created not just by the pattern in the wood and glass but also by outside factors including the light in the room and, not least, the person pulling the drawer. Akiko Kuwahata’s inspiration for this device came from her reflections on the creative process itself. This process relies on a multitude of sources, including the maker’s own ideas and experiences as well as influences from the outside world: other people, natural phenomena, art, books etc. All these experiences are combined and transformed in the creative process, just as the expression of Breathe is transformed when it is set in motion by a human hand. Kuwahata created Breathe in close cooperation with the Danish cabinetmaker Ken Winther, who works at PP Møbler. Materials: maple, glass.

Photography MINDCRAFT / Tuala Hjarnø.

Left: The Jaw Nuts by Henrik Vibskov. The piece explores the landscape of our mental universe – a state of mind that is bordering on insanity, depicting external pressures in the form of a noisy crowd of constantly blabbering wooden heads. Their broken language simulates the extreme and overwhelming information flow we are all exposed to today: an unstoppable stream of information and misinformation that threatens to drive us nuts. In form, the heads are a postmodern and Asian-inspired take on the traditional nutcracker. In an eerie mix of imagery, the bright colours spark associations to puppet show marionettes, while the sticks might point to the mediaeval custom of displaying the severed heads of slain enemies, mounted on stakes. Materials: wood, string.

Right: SUB3 by Henrik Vibskov. SUB3 explores the idea of a physical encapsulation of the human mind. It is designed as a transparent organic shell that both embraces and reshapes its guest – maybe even redirecting the mind and taking it to new places. SUB3 is a host, a physical and mental space that seeks to induce a new and pleasant mental state in its occupant and the beholder. The project was inspired by early scientific ideas about the nature and workings of the human mind. In the theory and practice of phrenology, the shape and proportions of the skull were seen as a map of our inner mental life, and cranial measurements, known as craniometry, were seen as a way of gaining insight into the human mind from the outside. Materials: Plexiglas, natural rubber.

Photography MINDCRAFT / Tuala Hjarnø.

[Installation photography © Nick Hughes/ Yellowtrace. Product photography © Tuala Hjarnø, courtesy of MINDCRAFT. Video © Yellowtrace.]