Autarky, Formafantasma
Inspired by the folk event of the Cene di San Giuseppe in Sicily with its hand-crafted bread displays, Autarky is a new installation by Formafantasma, a young design studio of two Italian designers Andrea Tremarchi and Simone Farresin, who both graduated in 2009 from the Design Academy Eindhoven. The exhibition is on show at Spazio Rossana Orlandi in Milan during Salone del Mobile, 14-19 April 2010.
Autarky suggests an autonomous way of producing goods, outlining a hypothetical scenario where a community embraces a self-inflicted embargo on goods from the outside. Nature is personally cultivated, harvested and processed, to feed and make tools to serve human necessities. The exhibition pays homage to the uncomplicated, the simple and the everyday.
Autarky, Formafantasma
In the installation, a collection of functional and durable vessels and lamps, naturally desiccated or baked at low temperature, are produced with a bio-material composed of 70% flour, 20% agricultural waste and 10% natural limestone. The differences in the colour palette are obtained by the selection of different vegetables, spices and roots that are dried, boiled or filtered for their natural dyes.
Studio Formafantasma invited the Italian broom maker Giuseppe Brunello and the renowned French bakery Poilâne, to join in the development of the installation. The cereal sorghum works as a link between these crafts – in a perfect production process without waste, the cereal is harvested and used to create tools, vessels and foods. Autarky offers an alternative way of producing goods where inherited knowledge is used to find sustainable and uncomplicated solutions.
Strawbrooms, Formafantasma
Co-designing in collaboration with the Italian broom maker Giuseppe Brunello, Studio Formafantasma added new subtle details to the traditional strawbroom to underline the beauty and the perfection of a timeless object.
Instead of discarding or adding materials and being processed, nature is given its deserved space: Studio Formafantasma asked Giuseppe Brunello to keep the roots of the sorghum plant at the head of one broom and to keep the grain ears at the end of the broom’s ‘brush’. A functional broom – “growing” at the end of a wooden stick.
Autarky, Formafantasma
The differences in the colour palette are obtained by the selection of different vegetables, spices and roots that are dried, boiled or filtered for their natural dyes.
Autarky, Formafantasma
Egg is used as a paint to add a bright detail onto the dry surface of the bowls.
Autarky, Formafantasma
The vessels and lamps are produced with a bio-material composed of 70% flour, 20% agricultural waste and 10% natural limestone.
Autarky, Formafantasma
Autarky is at Spazio Rossana Orlandi, via Matteo Bandello 14/16, Milano from April 14-19 2010
Image credits: Studio Formafantasma
