Studio Formafantasma (IT/NL)
10.12.2013 at 20h00

Andrea Trimarchi (1983) and Simone Farresin (1980) are Studio Formafantasma – two Italian designers based in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
The collaboration between the two started during their BA in communication design, illustrating books and magazines. Their interest in product design developed on the IM masters course at Design Academy Eindhoven, where they graduated in July 2009 with a thesis based on traditional Sicilian folk craft.

Formafantasma's work explores such issues as the role of design in folk craft, the relationship between tradition and local culture, critical approaches to sustainability and the significance of objects as cultural conduits. They identify their role as the bridge between craft, industry, object and user and seek to stimulate a more critical and conceptual design dialogue through their work. Works of Studio Formafantasma has been shown during the Milan and the Dutch Design Week, Abu Dhabi Art, during the ICFF in New York, Design MiamiBasel, the prestigious auction house Sotheby's in London and other international design fairs and exhibitions.

THE STRANGER WITHIN
The lecture will give an overview of the work of Formafantasma with a particular focus on their material investigations. The title of the lecture is referring to a different approach to the idea of the exotic where the diverse and the unknown isn't anymore a far-off presence but is indeed, closer than expected. The exotic appearances and references of the objects designed by Formafantasma (Botanica, Craftica, Charcoal) are not the expression of other cultures but more the re-thinking of the local, the known and the past. The work of the designers is in fact revisiting techniques, crafts and materials often drawing inspiration from the pre-industrial and natural resources, in a process where the mundane and even the discarded is re elaborated in search for contemporary meanings and applications.

www.formafantasma.com
A-Z lectures take place on Tuesday at Zebrazaal at Z33
Entrance: 5 euros (2 drinks included). Students pay 3 euro when they show their student card.

Z33
Zuivelmarkt 33
B-3500 Hasselt
+32 (0)11-295960
info@z33.be
http://www.z33.be