Daphna Isaacs and Lawrens Manders: Confidential

(jiří macek) The DMY festival takes place in Berlin next week. Its curatorial section will present several young remarkable designers, including the Eindhoven-based duo of Daphna Isaacs and Lawrens Manders, whose work catches everybody’s attention.

The Vault – an expressive futuristic dresser-safe – can be purchased at the upcoming auction in the prestigious auction house Pierre Berge & Associés in Brussels. This design undoubtedly demonstrates that the graduates from the Design Academy of Eindhoven are able to attack our emotions with very suggestive means. “This vault’s appearance is inspired by the mineral pyrite, also known as fool’s gold. Because of its resemblance to gold pyrite, is often mistaken to be highly valuable, being actually almost worthless. This now resembles my vision on value. Although you can steal the vault and/or its valuable contents, you will find out that it’s of no value to you,” explains Lawrens Manders.

“In this project, I am trying to find out what value really is by questioning myself as to which ‘things’ are of real value to me. I found out that, for me, most of them revolve around family, friendship and love. These are things that, as much as you want, you can’t really put in a safe. Only things that remind you about your value can be kept safe. This is why, in the vault, there are only five small drawers, in which you can put photos, letters, and tiny objects. After realizing that some objects that carry emotion are even smaller or much larger, the vault project will be continued,” adds Lawrens Manders

The Taffelskukken collection of lamps, which was presented in Milan this year (visitors to the Berlin festival will have an opportunity to see it as well) represents an interesting update of the central dining object – the huge decorative bowl. Daphna Isaacs combines it with a light and assigns it a significant place on the table, which large decorative bowls used to occupy. Even though the bowl is more space-saving than its historical predecessor, it is more visible and practical. Decoration is substituted with an admitted structure of light; its presence makes both the centre of the table and the contents of the bowl glitter. This ceramic and wood collection can also be found in the auction of Pierre Berge & Associés.

DMY Berlin takes place from June 9-13, 2010. For more information, see dmy/berlin.com

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