credit: Bonnie Alter
Canadian content at the Design Festival. In the huge lobby of the Victoria and Albert Museum hangs 28.280 by Omer Arbel. It’s a 30 metre long chandelier made with glass bulbs on copper wires. The 280 lights are hand-blown. The chandelier is hung from a height of 30 metres, the tallest part of the old building, and looks like a striking collection of planets in many colours.
It’s a bit strange to have this wonderful light on the list because it is the antithesis of everything at London Design Week. It’s made out of wild clematis found in the hedges of Oxford, it is completely ephemeral and it is just a simple celebration of the melding of nature and a good eye for beauty.
On the floral theme: this installation by Sharon Marston. She is a lighting designer with a huge list of clients. But this piece is made of natural willow cane with hundreds of little woven brass mesh petal shapes, interlaced with fibre optic filaments.
The front window of the store Anthropologie was filled to the brim with hand-painted coffee cups. Calling it365–A Year in Cups, 365 of them were individually painted by New York artist Gwyneth Leech. She paints only on used cups; either her own or those kept for her by friends. She then signs the bottom of each and writes the date and event that inspired it.
The small company, started in 1994, has won a number of design awards.
