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