Reykjavík Grapevine - 12.04.2019, Blaðsíða 40

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Forgoing The
Blank Canvas
Flétta Design Studio turns mundane
materials into objects of beauty
Words: Hannah Jane Cohen Photo: Art Bicnick
Flétta Design Studio is a little
over one year old, but has already
received more attention and ac-
claim than many studios achieve
in a decade. The duo behind Flé-
tta—Birta Rós Brynjólfsdóttir and
Hrefna Sigurðardóttir—take ma-
terials that would normally accu-
mulate dust on shelves or in draw-
ers and turn them into treasures.
And a candlestick
maker
The two met in design school,
and started collaborating in 2014.
Their first work involved map-
ping thrown away and recycled
materia ls from
ma nu fac t u r i ng
projects around
the city. It was a
match made in
heaven, they ex-
plain, that even-
t u a l l y e vo l v e d
into Flétta.
In early 2018,
t he st ud io re -
leased their debut project, ‘Mínú-
tustjakar,’ which recently won
Product Of The Year at the 2019
Reyk jav í k Grapev i ne Desig n
Awards. The studio created a se-
ries of candlesticks, each made by
hand in just one minute. In doing
so, they blurred the lines between
hand-made and mass-produced,
critiquing modern industrial so-
ciety in a playful way. The panel
determining the awards called it,
“unique and cost-effective,” and
“bullseye when it comes to what
people will pay for things.”
Finally a trophy
Their next effort was an open
studio at Ásmundarsalur entitled
‘Trophy,’ where the duo spent a
month publicly dismantling and
repurposing trophies. The results
of their labour were then present-
ed as part of DesignMarch.
“A trophy is a tricky object,”
Bi r t a ex pl a i n s
as she sits sur-
rounded by stacks
of marble bases
a n d h u n d r e d s
of golden plastic
goblets. “It ’s an
illusion of a value
that doesn’t re-
ally have any it-
self. It ’s mainly
plastic in reality.” Hrefna nods
in agreement. She’s heavily preg-
nant, only days away from giving
birth. “We’ve never won a trophy
in our lives,” she says, laughing.
“So they’re strange to us. By taking
them apart, we thought about all
the feelings behind them—what
it means to people to receive these
objects and that, even though they
represent something, they still
gave them to us to dismantle.”
Screws to figurines
The trophies were donated by the
dozens from sports clubs around
the country, and also given per-
sonally from numerous families
and athletes. They run the gamut
from national golf championships
to participation awards at eques-
trian tournaments.
After breaking them apart
piece by piece, from the screws to
the figurines, Birta and Hrefna
transform them into everything
from delicate hanging lights to or-
nate end tables. They’re beautiful
in an almost Rococo way, going far
beyond being just a symbol of the
ideology of the project into gor-
geous design objects in their own
right. At the same time, they col-
laborated on a series of denim rugs
made out of recycled jeans from
the Red Cross along with fashion
designer Steinunn Eyja Halldórs-
dottir.
Value in the forgotten
This focus on using thrown away
and recycled materials is at the
heart of Flétta’s work. “It’s an on-
going theme,” says Birta. “There
is something wholly different that
comes out when you start not with
a blank canvas. You have to design
something out of something that
is already something.”
Their Trophy exhibit was only
step one in a longer endeavour,
they explain. They’ll continue to
collect and remake. “We give ob-
jects a role and purpose,” Hrefna
emphasises. “By putting them into
a new context, we find new materi-
ality.” Birta nods. “We’re creating
new meaning.
Art
“A trophy is an
illusion of a value
that doesn’t really
have any itself. It’s
mainly plastic in
reality.”
No trophy is safe
i8 Gallery
Tryggvagata 16
101 Reykjavík
info@i8.is
t: +354 551 3666
www.i8.is
28 March - 25 May 2019
JANICE KERBEL
Sinkfight
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