The Botanica project displayed in the exhibition Ocean Plastics is created through investigating eighteenth and nineteenth-century methods before the oil was discovered to produce plastic. Hear the Italian designer duo Studio Formafantasma talk about the project and how they are influenced by the complex relationship between design, production and our environment.

This afternoon the Röhsska museum will present a lecture by the design duo Studio Formafantasma, who are exhibiting the project Botanica (2011) in the exhibition Ocean Plastics.

Hear them talk about how they investigated eighteenth and nineteenth-century methods of draining plants and animals in search of plasticity. They used for example a polymer extracted from insect secretions, wood dust and animal blood to create the Botanica.

Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin are Studio Formafantasma, an Italian design studio based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. From the beginning Formafantasma has developed a coherent body of work characterised by experimental material investigations and explored issues such as the relationship between tradition and local culture, critical approaches to sustainability and the significance of objects as cultural conduits.

They are perceiving their role as a bridge between craft, industry, object and user, they are interested in forging links between their research-based practice and a wider design industry. As a result, works by Studio Formafantasma have been commissioned by a variety of partners and their work has been presented and published internationally and museums such as New York’s MoMA, London’s Victoria and Albert, New York’s Metropolitan Museum, the Chicago Art Institute and Paris’s Centre Georges Pompidou have all acquired Formafantasma’s designs for their permanent collections.

The programme is part of the Gothenburg design festival, produced in collaboration with HDK- Academy of Design and Crafts, presented as part of Mötesplats Röhsska.

Sammanfattning svenska Projektet Botanica som visas i utställningen Ocean Plastics är skapat genom att undersöka 1700-och 1800-talets metoder innan oljan upptäcktes. Hör den italienska designduon Studio Formafantasma berätta om projektet och hur de influeras av den komplexa relationen mellan design, produktion och miljön. Föreläsningen hålls på engelska.

Aktiviteten ingår i Gothenburg design festival, producerad i samarbete med HDK – Högskolan för design och konsthantverk inom ramen för Mötesplats Röhsska.

Toppbild: Carl Ander.