Design Week Highlights: Batch 3
A round-up of our favourite finds during Design Week
From the Junction to Little Italy, we event hopped to some of our most anticipated offsite exhibits, including Imm Living‘s third annual Not Forkchops, which called for participating designers and makers to craft tools for the ultimate dinner party, Mjölk and Venice/Stockholm-based designer Luca Nichetto‘s collab on a series of coffee accessories, and sustainable furnishings at Design by Nature.
A pile of dirt in the window with a smattering of seemingly unrelated objects including the dress of a housewife, an axe, a tape measurer and a bench live in the window of a pristine condo presentation centre. The Museum of No Good is the work of 11 young artists and designers, which represents the casualties of the cyclic production of tools. Think: a museum of natural history of sorts, except instead of bones, a collection of deadbeat objects. Tagged by Tory Healy.
We want a seat on Scott Eunson’s End-Grain Block Bench. Part of the annual sustainable design competition Design by Nature, which promotes innovative furniture and public art through the use of salvaged materials, the bench is made from a solid block of Douglas Fir timber that’s been CNC carved with the pattern of a microscopic end-grain. The end result is cell like impressions that function as a comfortable place to sit. Tagged by Tory Healy.
Another winning project from last year’s Design by Nature competition, Stacklab’s Cast Composite Cubes serve as all-season seats and tables. At the core of each cube is salvaged dense foam, moulded from industrial cast metal pump casings, which is then finished with Engineered Cementitious Composite (bendable concrete) for durability. The set of four relatively lightweight blocks can be arranged together or stacked. Tagged by Tory Healy.
Mjölk, local purveyors of fine Japanese and Scandinavian furniture, joined forces with Stockholm-based Italian designer Luca Nichetto for “Sucabaruca”. The coffee set consists of a porcelain coffee pot, three cups, pour-over dripper, and maple wood tray with walnut legs and was produced in Toronto by local ceramicist Alissa Coe and woodworker Adrian Kuzyk. Tagged by Tory Healy.
Local ceramic artist Grace Eun Mi’s “Eye Popping” S&P shakers certainly caught our eye. Part of Imm Living’s third annual Not Forkchops exhibit at #Hashtag Gallery, which called for participating designers to create objects for the ultimate dinner party, the porcelain skulls shake out salt and pepper through their eyes. Tagged by Tory Healy.
Kump + Lo’s “Andee” candleholders at Not Forkchops update a traditional object with a sophisticated form and palette and give it a second function: interchanging a taper candle with a glass incense tube. The heavy bases in stone, hardwood, concrete and ceramic are paired with handles in brushed brass, powder-coated steel and aluminum. Tagged by Tory Healy.
The Great White North flag is part of Fugitive Glue’s ongoing Canadian Art Project. Showing patriotism without the cheese, this flag measures 32 by 64 inches and is made of white-on-white rip-stop cotton, a material typically used in outdoor technical gear. To recreate the look of snow, the northern provinces and basically everything else that is stereotypically Canadian, the flag was framed under glass and backlit in an aluminum shadow box.
Noelle Hamlyn’s Sweetness of the Work installation is a good match for its home in Gerhard Supply’s window, a Junction shop selling locally produced unisex clothing. A vintage Singer sewing machine, scissors, buttons and spools covered in salt crystals reference the abandoned use of these old-fashioned methods of garment making. Symbolism is at the core of this display, with the metal on the sewing machine left to rust and represent the erroding value of hand work in the fashion industry.
