I’ve always loved the idea of the mutability of things…Nothing is forever… There’s an inherent instability about how objects work in space.” – Edmund De Waal
I first came across the work of Edmund De Waal when reading an article by House and Garden; his work was featured in the hallway of a London townhouse. This image then went on to become a pivotal aspect in relation to ideas for project 05 at Chelsea College of Art and Design.
Edmund De Waal is a contemporary English artist and author who can be recognised for his installations of porcelain items; these installations are often large scale. The themes his work tends to explore are: diaspora, memory and materiality. His work is particularly notable due to the creation of a powerful visual element, yet the ability to retain simplicity.
The client for project 05 experiments with the creation of microclimates for plants and seed storage. Therefore the work of Edmund De Waal presented an interesting idea whereby a similar structure, with similar vessels, could be turned into a cabinet with a microclimate suitable for seed storage. When storing seeds, the environmental conditions will impact the quality of the seeds and therefore, ensuring they have appropriate conditions is essential.
The uniformity of the installations created by Edmund De Waal perfectly mirrored the intentional laboratory feeling I intended to create with the seed storage in project 05. Therefore, the images of his work will be used to inspire the design of the storage unit.
An image from the ‘A Thousand Hours’ installation by Edmund De Waal at the Alan Cristea Gallery in London in 2012 will also inspire ideas for seed storage. Unlike the previous images, the installation piece pictured below is a pair of identical, free standing vitrines which contained 1,000 pots. De Waal described this work as “anti-monumental, a work with real architectural presence and scale but that isn’t a monument since the viewer can move through and around the work”. The work represents the idea of holding a vast quantity of time in a certain space.