
08.04.20
Excerpt: Exhibition
7 Spanish Designers Made Objects Using Only Materials Found Within a Kilometer of Their Homes
Each year, the Swedish-born, Spanish-based curator Sanna Völker curates an exhibition that seems to capture something of the current moment. In 2018, she instituted a media blackout to address the scourge of Instagram creating preconceived notions of the exhibition experience; last year, she grappled with the chronic underrepresentation of women by brands. This year, the theme was quarantine and the idea of design by necessity: Kilometro Zéro invited Spanish-based designers to connect with their immediate surroundings by creating an object using only materials found within a kilometer of their homes. Based between Barcelona and Madrid, the designers were asked to materialize their experiences into a piece that represented the limitations, and possibilities, of the current situation. Many of them were surprised to find artisans hidden in plain sight: Júlia Esqué used scraps found in a blacksmithing workshop just two blocks from her apartment to make welded aluminum vases while Völker employed a ceramic studio 50 meters from her studio to make a tea service. One of our favorite pieces in the exhibition is a two-person bench by Marta Ayala Herrera with two rounded individual seats, created in collaboration with a wood workshop not far from her home. This year the exhibition exists only online of course, but the community it creates is very real.
PHOTOS BY DAVID LEON FIENE
Omayra Maymó, Isaac Piñeiro, Turbina Studio
Sanna Völker and Turbina Studio