Yet another manifestation worthy of our attention, held as part of Vienna Design Week, gave us the extraordinary overall impression and caused an unusual feeling within its audience. The exhibition that says – come, see, feel, touch – is an original presentation of sea elements shaped in a specific and poetic way. Simply said – this is an unusual display guided by indefatigable strength of imagination.

This exhibition presented within vast glass walls of Kunsthalle (literally “Space for art”) is a work and vision of multidisciplinary designer Julia Lohmann. Julia Lohmann is a professor at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg where she restlessly develops a completely new world of magic intended for all. At the same time she is a researcher at the Department of Design Products at the Royal College of Art in London. Her research is currently focused on development of materials and shapes made from kelp.

This successful designer of bold ideas constantly explores contemporary issues such as the relationship of man and nature, with an accent on animal world, that guides her work towards exploring her own personality. Constant dilemmas within a human being are turned into an artistic expression and are meant for questioning our own emotions. Sometimes meant to appall, her design is above all surreal. And the exhibition itself presents a mystical scene that will take us away from the real world by moving us into the deep blue sea.

The displayed moment of inspiration, that possesses a certain specific strength, is a reinterpretation of her “giving value to leftovers“ motto. Sea weeds are placed by one another in a form of a cover onto the bearing structure made from metal, fiberglass or wood. The process of forming unusual structures by connecting those carefully prepared “sea strings“ might seem as the product of a pure coincidence. But in reality, with a careful study of the very nature of used material, Julia Lohmann has learned how to “listen“ and feel the movement and the behavior of nature thus guiding her work in desired direction. In every moment she possesses the control over the form that gives her unlimited possibilities of form-making. Every design becomes a possibility that erases the line between the reality and imagination. Her sculptures become silent story-tellers of hidden secrets written within the great waves of the sea, making some ordinary things come to life – from luminaires to everyday hats. In the variety of design expressions Julia Lohmann also generated a unique-looking fabric made of kelp that resembles the soft nature of leather by its texture and structure.

This revolutionary employment of unusual natural material presents one step further in a constant battle over usage of environment-threatening products. Making us think “green“, Julia Lohmann started her own battle for the well being of our planet.

For more information about Julia Lohmann please visit http://www.julialohmann.co.uk/

Text and photos: Milena Vučković

The Vienna design week is being held from September 28th to October 7th, for the fifth consecutive  year.  Yet another exquisite and colourful programme of events awaits the visitors this fall, with the aim to show and enable people to experience the many-faceted creative work in the fields of product, furniture and industrial design as well as experimental design. Design has been and is an important field in the production of culture: it shapes our material culture, our everyday life and our consumer world, it influences our lifestyles and fashions and most fundamentally our aesthetic sense and judgements.

The festival’s events are scattered all over the city and organized in cooperation with many partners – from Vienna museums to production and retail companies to designers from all over the world. A large number of shops takes part in the festival by offering their customers special deals on designer furniture and products.

The festival aims to reveal creative and production processes and encourage experimental work on the spot. It also presents and promotes design that in the first instance withdraws from the scheme of utility value and functionality in order to create awareness and pose questions or also simply just to have fun.

With exhibitions, venue-specific installations, workshops, lectures, discussion events, a programme of films and, of course, enough opportunity to party and network, Vienna design week  is not only an attraction for the international design scene but most explicitly also aims to interest and appeal to a wide public audience of Viennese and visitors to Vienna.

One of the main venues of the festival is Jean Nouvel’s Stilwerk building. The events in this space are connected through the common topic od recycling and reusing old and discarded objects to create new products. This weekend Stilwerk was home to the Misfits Revisited workshop, headed by the Viennese design group breadedEscalope. Earlier this year breadedEscalope began an experiment investigating the products, employees and brand of the long established company of Thonet. The cooperation does not work on the basis of a briefing but on the freedom of communicating an analysis of the form, material, tradition and processes involved in inventing a product. The visitors could, within the framework of the workshop, create or re-create their own “Thonet” out of discarded pieces from the Thonet factory, and take their creation home.

Zurich designers Atelier Volvox rescued these unloved plush toys and gave them a new lease of life by turning them inside out – eyes and all. Samuel Coendet and Lea Gerber collected the toys from second-hand shops and forgotten corners of nursery schools before cutting them open to reverse the fur. The Outsiders toys received one of the awards at the Vienna design week.

For the impressions and photos of the events we hereby thank Milena Vučković