Objects of Common Interest’s Inflatable Installation in Brussels |Yellowtrace

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Brussels Design Museum has given carte blanche to Greek duo Objects of Common Interest, who have created an original, in situ installation on show at the museum’s hall until 29th August 2021. Standing Stones exhibition showcases the ethos of the institution that questions design, its history and creative process while exploring the potential of collectible design at large.

Working between Athens and New York, Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis of Objects of Common Interest celebrate the links between design and art with their whimsical installation, imagined as a vehicle that opens up a dialogue with the museum’s collection.

The installation is composed of several monumental inflatable structures inspired by Cycladic culture – the peoples of the Bronze Age in the Greek islands in the 3rd millennium BCE – and, closer to home, the work of sculptor Constantin Brancusi who studied the abstraction of everyday shapes such as humans and birds rendered in materials like stone and metal.

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Building on this heritage, the duo devised a series of sculptures that stimulates reflection on softness in both the design and the quality of materials. Moulded like translucent inflatable structures, what used to be heavy and solid becomes light, airy and soft. These changes provide a reinterpretation of old forms and enable visitors to develop new and original relationships with the work.

Through Objects of Common Interest, Petaloti and Trampoukis focus on the creation of experiential environments and objects, carrying out ongoing research on materiality, the conceptual, taking the form of tangible spatial experiences. Their work moves back and forth between the permanent and the ephemeral, the formal and the intuitive, marrying the handmade and the tactile, the experimental and the poetic.