Partners in Craft
a project with Uniandes BogotÃ���Ã��Ã�Â
The project, called Partners in Craft, focused on creating new relationships between young future designers and artisans from Bogotà who are not necessarily related to the traditional related to traditional “artesanias” in Colombia, trying to establish a creative collaboration more than a relationship based on a commission from the designer to the artisan. In shorter, the experiment was to try do it in the “Italian way”, where the artisans are seen more as “maestros”, people with incredible experience to learn from, to have nice conversations with and to collaborate with in the creative process.
Each group of students had to pick a specific material or craft to work with and then find an artisan based in Bogotà to develop a project with.
Marble, aluminum, leather, ceramic, wood and borosilicate glass are a few of the material selected.
A coffee table where leather functions as the main structure, a collection of wooden tableware that emphasise the beauty of wood-turning and aims to create moments of sharing on the table, a ceramic set of pottery telling a story about Colombian regions, a lamp playing with the beauty of glass reflections, led-light woven with fabric and thin metal threads to give shape to chandeliers and table lamps are just a few examples of what came out from this 10 weeks project.
But mostly, what came out is more than a collection of furniture, lighting and tableware emphasising the beauty of these specific materials and crafts; what came out from this project are also new relationships that turned the initial “business meetings” into coffee moments or after work beers.
From the pictures:
Weaving a new light ( by Lozano Cardenas, Gustavo Andres, UmaÑa Balen Ernesto Joseand Vasquez Mora Santiago): a material experimentation of weaving fabric with led and metal threads gave shape to a collection of lamps made out of flexible illuminating fabric that maintains the given shape.
Deep dim (by Buitrago Hernandez Daniela and Martinez Sanchez Natalia Andrea)is a coffee table where leather becomes an unusual protagonist and functions as the main structural part of the object.
Arraigo (by Botero Ocampo Isabella, Dussan Pinto Daniel Felipe and Medina Medina Veronica) is a tableware set made out of wood taking shape combining the idea of emphasising the wood turning technique with a new food experience.
Through marble lamp (by Hernandez Buitrago Sofia Valentina, Mendez Homez Laura Daniela, Rincon Beltran Diny Mariam), a simple floor lamp made of reused and recycled marble and aluminum. Made artisanally, the marble was cut by hand and the aluminium structure was made by melting aluminum pieces such as bicycle wheels, poured into sand moulds.
From Earth to clay (by Escobar Restrepo Gabriela, PeÑuela Avila Alejandra, Van Meerbeke Restrepo Martin and Villegas Giraldo Cristina): inspired by the diversity and natural beauty of Colombia, is a collection of ceramic products which rescues the textures that cover the most imposing landscapes of our country.
Variegato Lamp (by Monroy Valencia Santiago, Montoya Bernal Keneth David, Restrepo Barros Jose David and Umbarila Aranguren Juan Sebastian) is a chandelier that plays with the idea of overlaying glass borosilicate tubes. The lamp is composed by three different modules that change colour and light effects according to where it is observed from.
Partners in Craft was the title for the course Estudio 6, led by Sara Ferrari during her Visiting Professorship at
Uniandes
The course was co-led with designer and professor Christiaan Job Nieman Janssen.
