Month: July 2025

Design is never born in a vacuum. It emerges from specific places, contexts and relationships — with materials, with people, with histories both visible and hidden. Across different geographies and cultures, designers are returning to the roots of making: working with what is locally found, reviving traditional skills, and giving voice to the material world. These approaches not only foster sustainable and meaningful practices, but also reveal powerful stories embedded in the act of creation. Continue reading “Material Encounters”

Natural materials are imbued with lives of their own, with their own life stories. They tell tales of the earth, the wind, the water, and the sun. Of swarming and gathering, of predator and prey, resilience and respite, mimicry and motion, becoming and vanishing. They connect nature and culture, science and art, thinking and doing, the past with present and future, and the human maker with a sense of the non-human being the material once was. Continue reading “Animism – The Tales of Matter”

Exploring the possibilities for small-scale design and production in East Iceland, a series of workshops saw four designers collaborating with local practitioners. The designers have now created stunning, contemporary products – using locally sourced materials and skills – which are on show now at Spark Design Space in Reykjavik, forming the exhibition Austurland: Designs from Nowhere. Continue reading “Austurland: Designs from Nowhere”