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Strange Days

Last month, New York lighting designer Bec Brittain invited fellow craft-led designers Material Lust and Alex P. White to showcase as part of Strange Days, a sensuous deco-eques interior staging.

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Photography by Lauren Coleman

How can design respond to increasingly difficult times? Lately, it seems that talents are taking their own initiative to present new work. These clever showcases demonstrate the dynamic power of creative communities and shared objectives. They no longer have to only follow the traditional formats of brand sponsored collaborations or fair platform exhibits; though both remain important.

Taking a playful yet prompt approach, celebrated designer Bec Brittain opened her Midtown Manhattan studio to curate a unique showroom staging. Strange Days (on view from 13 September to 13 October)  brought together singular furniture and accessory pieces by fellow New York-based craft-led practices Material Lust and Alex P. White to compliment the lighting talent’s latest Mercury fixture; a large curtain-like spatial installation comprising 35 beaded strands.

Striking a careful balance between a dark gothic yet comfortably luxurious atmosphere, the interior mise-en-scene juxtaposed hard metallic forms with lacquered surfaces and plush textures. The deco-eques setting revealed a series of provocative craft-led works that could not succumb to standard categorisations. In one case, Material Lust’s ‘pointed-arch’ Peak sofa meshed perfectly with one of Brittain’s iridescent chandeliers, that championed the potential of open geometry. Such a cunning interplay established the perfect sultry backdrop for an opening night live-tableau in which a performer continuously tattooed oranges.

Mercury by Bec Brittain
Mercury by Bec Brittain
Exhibition View
Exhibition View
Peak sofa by Material Lust
Peak sofa by Material Lust
Exhibition View
Exhibition View
Exhibition View
Exhibition View
Exhibition View
Exhibition View
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