TOWARDS THE CHAOS
This is my master’s thesis project. I explored a method of creating ephemeral surfaces in sugar that quickly dissolve into water, as a conversation starter with other designers about the future of products we create, their life span, and, consequently, the waste production. The focus, then, had been on how to cope with both consumption and sustainability, hoping for a win-win performance of coexistence between humans and nature.
How can design practice engage with a contemporary wicked problem?
This project is a collection of design practices that use sugar as a medium to reflect on consumption in a context where sustainability is used as a selling strategy.
This project developed itself on design events through the intention with the public. In a “back and forth” method, where I could display, get responses, reflect, reshape and display again.
Stockholm Furniture & Design Fair 2019
The earth spins, time goes by and this movement makes change. From a non-human perspective, million of years might happen in just one second. What we have right here and right now might not be here anymore in the next second. All that is solid melts into the air. The reality of modernity is to think that humans are the main species and technology is the solution, and forget the wholeness of this universe we find ourselves in. Objects used for a few years shortly become obsolete and spend hundreds of years still on this planet waiting for decomposition. Second by second this same planet suffers the consequences. Climate change, illnesses due to pollution, glaciers melting. On different scales, by every second, we’re decaying. Are we causing our own extinction?
This project took part of the group exhibition “A second ago” at the 2019 edition of the Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair.
With a hard caramel, vessels were shaped and taken to the fair, suggesting to other people in the business of design a reflection about the life span of artifacts in general, since sustainability is a trend on those events.
"When you create a new object, do you think of how long it will last? Not only in its context, but on this planet? Most sustainable objects are built with the intention to last, with classical and minimalistic time-proof design. They normally last longer being waste than they do being functional. What if we invert this logic? This project evokes ephemerality in sustainability. It uses sugar as a material to represent a cycle: after fulfilling a use, it quickly dissolves in water. And this is how we should see the future of objects: lasting longer in their context than their afterlife.”
Drinks were poured on sugar vessels and conversations took place.
Fuorisalone Milano 2019
The sugar vessels were also part of the exhibition Hemma Gone Wild by the Swedish Design Moves.
Jewellery
The reality of consumption is that we often buy things we only wear a few times. What if objects would last just as long as they are necessary?
A cheap material transformed into a valuable object that, after its use, can fade away. The metal part can be used again to a new and different piece.
Reshaping the failure
If the reflection is about new forms of consumption, therefore the waste also should be considered. Since the pieces in caramel are so fragile, a new material was created out of all the frustration of the broken pieces.
Sugar Ink
The concept of this reflection is that when the sugar objects fulfill their functions they are thrown into the water tank. But what to do with this water? Is that the moment where we should stop caring about its cycle? When it gets dissolved, we get a high concentrated sugary water.
This water was used to print patterns on fabrics, following the same idea of the jewellery: at first, it has a fashionable aspect, later on it can be washed out and reprinted or used as a basic outfit.
Collaboration with artist - Vinícius dos Santos
eternell - the swedish name for the family of flowers that can be dried and, consequently, last conserving its shape and colours.
on one hand, nature will remain.
on the other, a sugar vessel that holds this beauty and will thankfully fade away, as if had never existed.
Final Review Performance
or The Act of Let Go
The final presentation of this project is also a result because it showed the performance of letting go. It proves the point that it can last less as waste than fulfilling the intended use. Those objects participated in different events throughout the whole academic year - so why keep them just because they look aesthetically interesting?
When they fade away, is like they had never existed. By the end of the presentation, they were gone, and, after all, the performance was more powerful than the objects themselves.
The artistic book Towards the Chaos
As a form to gather the knowledge created during this journey, writing a book with the collected insights was the way I found to communicate it. The book has an artistic format, with blank spaces, easy language, questions, and a lack of commitment to a straight layout.
MAOW - Gothenburg Design Festival 2019
After the final review and The Act of Let Go, some parts of this project were remade and displayed at the Master’s Degree Exhibition MAOW (Masters Open Week) as part of the Gothenburg Design Festival, at the City Library. During the 5 days of the exhibition, each present project had a time slot for activation, which consisted of expanded space and a presentation. In this case, Towards the Chaos was deactivated, closing the exhibition throwing all the objects into the water tank.
@towardsthechaos
