Embracing In Between

Last week we had a workshop and exhibition in Aarhus (Denmark) during Adapt-r event Making Research Research Making. Adapt-r (Architecture, Design and Art Practice Training-research) is a European program and network to promote creative practices research.

Together with designer Verena Ziegler, and after working together for one year we presented there and for the first time our project Inhabiting In Between.

Inhabiting In Between started as a shared space. Coming both of us from an architecture background, we both had the urge to explore the humanness in materiality, bringing it closer to the body. What are the emotional connections that we share with and through materials? And how can we, as designers, as makers, as practitioners, explore these connections?

This shared space of being in between, started as a series of material acts. Performing these acts with the materials, letting them speak to us, we seek to unveil new emotional relationships.

From static materializations of in between space, we moved into dynamic techniques, and started working with inflatables.

How do we inhabit a space that is changing, that is changeable? When inhabiting a dynamic space we are not in control. We are simply there, having the experience. We can activate it, we can decide how to handle the texture or wrap it around ourselves. But it keeps a degree of unpredictability, which makes the act a shared space. We are therefore not designing the texture completely, but providing the space for the material, and our body, to have a shared experience. Of inhabiting together.

Will inflatable spaces give us a sense of belonging? Can materials help us to connect emotionally?

As we don't have answers but only questions, I leave you with a narrative video sharing some of our latest works and thoughts on inhabiting the in between.

And with a question to embrace:

• what could it do for you? 

Looking forward to your comments here below.

Time Bomb

We now nothing is there forever. We change, objetcs change, the landscape changes. Our mood changes. Our body changes.

Made out of a material that disintegrates with time, Time-Bomb Dear bracelet is a temporary piece of jewelry. 

Wether you choose it for a loved one or for yourself, TBD changes as your love changes, as you change. TBD knows that your love fades along time. She understands. She has been designed for that. It is also her nature to change, and accompany you as you change.

TBD does the job for you. No need to think you need to keep it for good. No need to confront the guilt of getting rid of it. No need to apply the KonMari method. TBD dies.

TBD comes in a beautiful package, expiration date included. You may choose the desired length of your affection. We offer 3 types, with 3 different price ranges:

• fast & furious
• mild & mighty, and
• long & luminous.

How dear is your love? Or how dare?

Drop me some love (or hate, or both), on the comment lines below. 

In Time We Ice

While welcoming the summer heat, I got to discover something that seems now so obvious: why not freezing some thread?

And the textures I got were quite intriguing.

Then it came: why not putting them over my body? And the first iced wearable was born. 

When wearing this innocent frozen necklace, and ready to reflect on temperature and texture, I discovered that ice actually was a representation of time.

We cannot freeze time. But we can materialize our time frozen. 

Get my iced impression on this new video below (audio included!): 

Now I invite you to freeze and wear your own time block. And besides refreshing yourself, do share with me in the comments below: 

• How do you imagine your iced time block in form and size?
• How and where do you wear it on your body?

What The Wear

Is what we wear showing or hiding our real selves?

I asked myself this question a few days ago, after I bought something new to wear. I was suddenly feeling confident and fresh. It kind of brought my ego out.

This reaction made me think: what does what we wear arise? what does it hide?

Jose Miguel Iribas, great sociologist I really appreciated personally as well, and whom unfortunately recently passed away, used to say: there are three main tools to socialize: sports, alcohol and the naked body. 

Some people imagine the audience naked to loose their fear on stage. Perhaps they become "real" in their eyes, free from their power, position or career skins.

I love cool clothes (always the ones I can't afford :-). But I've been (unconsciously) neglecting owning new stuff in the past years, perhaps and coincidentally at the same time that I had a major shift in my career. Since my work has increasingly become more personal, I had the need to be more naked. Not only emotionally, also literally. 

Possibly because when no clothes are present, there is only body to wear, only the real deal. And the ego-wear falls flat.

What the wear? Here's my humble hum to invite you out:

Now, throw me back some wearing love:

• which "you" reflects on what you wear?

Can't wait to hear your stories, blurbs and cuts in the comments below.

---

And on wearing, I just released a very limited collection of thread wraps: 

Purpose Me

They are summery, colorful, textile, flexible, warm and unique.

And now for sale!

Click on the image to see them:

Purpose Me are very personal pieces. Each one hand-made, body-made, and with her unique process story. 

From 19.06.2015, six wraps will be shown as well in Buen Gusto shop/gallery, Zurich Altstadt. 

[I also take custom orders]

contact me

contact me

Behind the Thins

[plug your headphones to get the "full monty"]

It's so interesting to work with materials like a Montessori teacher works with kids. Letting them express and develop their own personality. 

Come on, I can hear. Materials do not have a personality. 

They do not feel. but their nature very well expresses their "wish" to be or become something.

The materiality of thin string and the construction I made with it gave me some clues about life.

It's about networking. A hot issue in our lives!

But when I started this exercise, I wasn't planning to make a networking map. 

My starting point was: I am going to connect with a wall. I am going to use threads and sticky dots to connect myself with this wall, using as many lines as needed to feel that we are attached. It will be like growing roots, like planting myself to the wall.

Then, while doing it, the wall started to disappear. The "real" thing was happening in the threads, those individual almost-nothing things.

Instead of representing my attachment to the wall, they started to represent relationships to me. In a broader sense. 

What is it that this tactile experience unstrung?

I'd love to hear your line of thoughts on this:

• which of these lessons strapped stronger to you?
• how would your bundle look like?

Do come over to the comments below and let me know (or if you prefer, please email me back). Your words really make a difference.

Hat the Wrap

Have you ever found yourself wrapped in too many things?

Even being the master of planning and organization, it's almost impossible that you've never been enshrouded in obligations, tasks, decisions, actions or responsibilities.

Though you manage your moves, sometimes overwhelm happens. So much that you cannot actually recognize yourself any more.

This is what I had in my head when acting today's video. The "easy" act of getting involved - sometimes not aware that is happening - grows slowly. And thickens till one day you cannot remember how the heck you got to that point of being trapped. But you are!

Visualize yourself entangled in a material mane to help you remember: you can always cut that strain (and wear it overhead).

If all this feels familiar to you, let me know in the comments below:

• Does visualizing your "overthread" help you deal with it? 
• How could you "materialize" your cut-through moment?

Another love story

This story is about dancing. 

I am recently practicing, talking and reading about "material thinking". It has spread in academic design research discussions and practices, and as well in some professional processes. It consists in letting the materials guide the design, so rather than imposing a form and applying the material to it, we let the material "speak", or inform the result. 

While it might not sound like big news to you, I'd like to actually twist it up a notch. And invite to, instead of "material thinking", to "material dancing".

Material dancing is a kind of love story. It is a temporary one, where you (and your chosen material) allow an intimate connection to happen. No projections, no expectations, just generous opening up to both give and receive.

There is a dance session I practice regularly called "5 rhythms". Based on a technique by choreographer Gabrielle Roth, the dance session is about letting the body move to whatever rhythm the conductor is playing. To let yourself move and not think. So no mind-think, just body-think.

At times, you connect with one fellow dancer. And then something magic happens. When the two bodies connect through the rhythm, there is such a liberating, fun and free physical connection. The bodies speak to each other while there is no verbal exchange at all. 

This is the connection I invite to have with the objects surrounding us. Because when open to share and receive with that "other body", there is a magic flow, a temporary bond, a sense of belonging that changes us both forever.

And who said walls can't become dancing partners? As with people, if we underestimate their potentials, we are missing a lot of opportunities to discover.

Now, I'd like to hear from you:

• Can you imagine to invite yourself to a dance not in your room, but "with it"?

Pulling the Thread

Through the years, I found that the best way of working on a design project (which can also be translated into life projects) is what I call pulling vs pushing. Rather than having a preconceived image or idea, it consists of outstretching several options - threads. And start pulling each of them, until one appears to expand our options. Even beyond what we initially conceived.

Pulling often serves a side bundle of doubt, and also often - at least in my experience - it is difficult to "let go" that initial idea that I had pictured as desired end result.

When doing the first bit you'll see in the video above, I had no idea whatsoever that I would end up getting the rest of its sequence (so do hold on and watch the full minute :-). Just pulled.
Sometimes an insignificant fiber can expand into infinite opportunities and surprising beauty.

But I'd love to hear about your strains:

• Have you encountered pulling vs pushing? How did it untwine?

Can't wait to read about it in the comment section below.