VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2011: REFLECTIONS EXHIBITION
Specially for this year’s design festival in Vienna (Vienna Design Week 2011) Oskar Zięta proposed a new and unusual way of perception in design. His idea Reflections is like a kaleidoscope able to boost our possibilities of looking at objects while exposing the mystery of vision and understanding. This lively installation was developed thanks to use of refined boxes, closed from all side walls decorated by different patterns and reflecting on their inner surface some entrapped objects put inside. Reflections is one-of-kind invitation to peculiar world of illusion. Peepholes on the boxes are at different heights and diverse angles.
The visitors can experience a sneak view of what is inside them: the well known furniture pieces by Zieta produced with the Fidu Technology, are caged inside a trap and hunted by the light. Like in Alice in the Wonderland – nothing is as it looks like. Design is transformed into a perception tool and reconstructs the world in which both: objects and the materials could be perceived in variety of ways. The Polish designer holds a lens towards the reality of design shifting the view and changing the perception. The observers become the explorers: through the peep-holes they can reach just a limited view as their eyes receive a distorted picture of the space and the pattern reflecting on the metal surface giving back a confused image of the piece of furniture.
Does Oskar Zięta and his team reveal a new, unprecedented and unexpected technique to work with metals? Is the aim of Zieta to show the fascinating process of possible, unreal, deformation of the metals? Is it the art of the camouflage which makes objects invisible and plays with surfaces and dimensions? Yes, Oskar Zięta and his team are giving a try to make steel invisible. The nature and mimicry are the main inspirations. The Polish designer’s objects are more that the final products. They become the tools which jeer at vision and turning this design exhibition into a discovery, surprise and disquieting experience. Delimitation, fusion of the patterns, changing surfaces, and the reflections depend on the chosen metal: stainless steel appears to be colder and copper warmer. But it is just a visually confusing game, isn’t it?
The exhibition is curated by Maria Cristina Didero.