Reflecting on organic forms, chemical compositions and advanced technological innovation, while utilising traditional craftsmanship, Niki Chania’s and Despina Charitonidi’s design objects challenge our perception of the digital and analogue future. While creating a symbiosis of chaotic geological surfaces - of purely industrial minimal forms - through their collaboration Chania and Charitonidi highlight the way in which an artist and a designer harmonically act as craftsmen and engineers.

Having a common fascination for underwater life, the ‘sea anemone pieces’ playfully pushes the boundaries of functional objects. Complex in technique and utterly unconventional, the work of the duo generates a dynamically unique and surprising sculptural environment. Based on personal memories and experiences the designs contemplate an early “close to the sea”/deep sea long lost childhood reminiscent of times governed by naiveness and lightness. Against that thought, the constructive elements of the forms originate from the aesthetics of more brutalistic urban sources, such as the public transport handles, car tubes and billboard structures, inevitably commenting on a frenetic way of living an adult life. As a personal attempt to overlay everyday urban wandering with a fictional veil and to recreate the dreams of the childhood with the materials of adult urban life.

The collection series is conceived as subsequent ruins of an imaginary era where the softness of the body disappears, depicted in plain inox tints covered in crystalic ceramic tiles. 

In collaboration with Despina Charitonidi.

Words by @meri.charitonidi @ferociousurbanites
Photos by @tampakis.dimitris

Materials: Stainless steel pipes, ceramic surfaces