MANMADE FOSSILS
YUSUKE OFFHAUSE & COKI BARBIERI
Franko-Japanese artist Yusuke Offhause is based between Paris, Tokyo and Geneva. His work explores imperfection;
Offhause is fascinated by the aesthetic results of accidental
or unintentional things. He says he allows his objects to become things they weren’t intended to be.
FUWA FUWA
“The handmade element is absolutely important to me. I have an aversion to perfectly square, straight or clean and smooth industrial objects,” explains Offhause.
“My work explores the notion of imperfection, yet thought of as the inverse
of the common idea of default or failure. The word ‘imperfection’ is often negatively connoted with terms such as: default, bad, waste, fault, vice. I think that imperfection
can be positively used as a source of creation and in playing an aesthetic role.”
Offhause mainly works with sculpture and installations. In his latest collections,
Fuwa Fuwa and Spa Spa, Offhause uses plastic bottles and snack containers typically found in supermarkets or food takeaways. These single-use packaging shapes
are intended as a response to an era that is defined by speed.
Offhause notes that most of the time these products are manufactured
in China, but they end up discarded all over the world. As a designer
he is particularly drawn to using food items because of the way food brings people together at a table.
He combines these packaging forms with other materials including ceramic and glass, and sometimes also unusual substances like metal, wax, bread and sugar.
SPA SPA
SPA SPA
Offhause plays with ideas of visual memory and nostalgia, and transforms ubiquitous everyday objects from flimsy plastic “rubbish” into fossils that reveal something
about our modern lifestyles. The resulting pieces appear half-manmade, half-natural.
“My work often deals with a reformulation of trivial objects from everyday life,
which I give, by a series of operations, transformations, and disconcerting appearances. So, I would be happy if I could offer new perspectives and small discoveries through familiar subjects.”
YUGEN
YUGEN
Work from three of Offhause’s collections is currently part of the Cluster Crafts online exhibition. These different series – Fuwa Fuwa, Spa Spa and the Yugen Stoneware collection – represent Offhause’s preoccupations.
Where Offhause’s work is intentionally irregular and imperfect, the pieces included
in the Cluster Collection by Coki Studio are much more measured and precise.
Using many of the same materials as Offhause but to very different effect,
the Coki pieces look to nature for inspiration. Both designers intend to highlight issues
of sustainability and our impact on the environment.
Rocklumìna
Italian designer Coki Barbieri was born in a small Italian seaside town. She studied humanities but decided
to pursue her passion for design by studying interior design, then architecture and building, and then finally construction techniques with a focus on product design.
“I really like to use glass,” she says, “which is also made up of the natural material par excellence: silica.
I believe the glass is solid-state light and is certainly
the best man-made material to date.”
Rocklumìna
She remembers spending her childhood drawing and creating small objects and has always felt drawn
to geometric shapes. She founded her own brand, Coki Studio, in 2017.
Barbieri is particularly interested with the field of bio-architecture
and sustainability and uses only natural materials that are found around Italy.
“On Cluster there are my two collections that are both inspired by nature and contain natural materials: one is Rocklumìna, a collection of Italian rock salt lamps,
winner of the Green Product Award 2020. The second collection, Cochleae,
presents a new series of vases inspired by the development of snails and made of glass and Italian stone,” she explains.
Cochlea dello Sviluppo
Cochlea del Risveglio
Barbieri’s main inspiration comes from a desire to create a story and translate human emotions into objects. For example, the collection of Cochleae vases represents the various forms that a snail assumes in its life stages: when it awakens, when it gets up and when it frees itself from its shell.
“With the Rocklumìna lamp, I wanted to create an illusion of company for those
who feel alone: the light it emits is truly unusual, it passes through the natural salt crystals and observing it starts to ‘hypnotise’ you,” she adds.
Barbieri studied colour therapy and uses certain principles in her work, hoping to create pieces
that are healing and therapeutic as well as beautiful.
Cochleae Collection
A selection of lamps and vases by Coki Studio
are available on the Cluster Crafts online shop.
Thank you for reading,
Katie De Klee & Cluster Team.