Estudio Campana (BR)
www.campanas.com.br

Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed... constantly.

03.09. - 09.09.2006

Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed...constantly.

In Brazil alone, 260,000 tonnes of refuse are produced daily. This figure is quite imposing and lends a new urgency to the recycling discussion when considered on a global scale.

We propose the development of a new lexicon of materials based on the things we typically categorise as rubbish: water bottles, water jugs, cardboard packaging, styrofoam, plastic containers, wooden crates, tyres.

To materialise the preceding investigations, the following task is set forth: Workshop participants are to build individual huts with discarded materials and to place the focus on work performed by hand. Considering differences in colour, texture, transparency, resistance and form, we will construct functional huts that reveal the luxury and beauty of the individual components. The use of materials that let light through also serves a quite specific purpose: At the end of the workshop, all the huts will be illuminated from within.

The manual craftsmanship of the work will demonstrate the superfluousness of industrial tools. The main point is to come in contact with the limitations of each component, to force conflicts between materials and to discover new forms of beauty. To discover the potential of manual craftsmanship, it is nowadays necessary to pursue paths that stand in opposition to those of the highly industrialised world we live in. There are other options and it is incumbent upon us to seek them.

Estudio Campana

The brothers Fernando (1961) and Humberto (1953) Campana are two of South America's most well-known designers. Neither one initially intended to pursue design, with Fernando having studied architecture and Humberto having pursued law. Since 1983, they have worked together in their São Paolo studio and developed furniture that occupies the zone between design and art. Fernando and Humberto Campana frequently take their ideas from Brazilian street life, producing unconventional furniture that is often based on everyday finished materials such as waste products or industrial goods and is nevertheless both aesthetic and functional. Constituting the central focus of their practice, the material often serves as the point of departure for new forms. Hence, the Brothers Campana see the challenge in transforming something humble into something decadent and luxurious.

In 1989, they struck the public with their collection of metal furniture "The Uncomfortables". Since then, furniture sculptures have registered as an important trend in Brazil. One of their most imaginative creations is the Anemone armchair, formed from plastic tubes wound around a steel frame.

From 1996 to 2004, they regularly served as workshop leaders, not only in Brazil but also at Boisbuchet, in Miami and at the ECAL in Lausanne.

Their works have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions. At IMM Cologne 2004, they were invited to design an "Ideal House". They have been honoured with many prizes, in particular with a number of national awards. Their creations feature in the holdings of prominent museums and institutions such as the MoMA in New York, Vitra Design Museum in Germany, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in Israel and the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal.

Their clients include Edra, OLuce, Cappellini and Fontana Art.