Shanghai/London-based firm Neri&Hu has published details of their “Unfolding Village” installation, set to take center stage at the Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair 2019. The exhibition, taking place in February, will see Neri&Hu depart from the traditional convention of furniture fairs, often purely focused on product design, and instead actively engage with pressing social issues unique to their base country of China.
Having recently studied the issue of disappearing villages and village cultures in China, the designers were alarmed by the impact of such a disappearance on community, family, and cultural roots. With many products centered on the ideas of nostalgia, dwelling, and “the individual’s relationship within a collective,” the firm created the “Unfolding Village” exhibition to capture the essence of traditional Chinese villages.
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“The Unfolding Village” is inspired by the alleyways and street life of Chinese villages, with the installation organized as a “sinuous or continuous alleyway that folds and unfolds to create lanes and layers of spaces slowly revealing themselves to visitors.” The installation’s form mirrors that of an abstracted roof to symbolize the home, repeated in connected rows to create a “village” cluster.
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- Neri&Hu's hotel retreat combines adaptive reuse with vernacular Chinese design
- Neri&Hu's Chinese villas imagine the village as an "extended family"
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The installation is to be constructed of local timber sourced from Sweden, with windows and shutters strategically placed to create unexpected moments of encounter. Within the installation, the firm’s furniture and lighting products are curated and lined along the alleyway.
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The Chinese notion of "fiction" actually derives from the term "small talk" originating from alleys and streets. The spatial device of the alley creates a quirky tableau for the objects while inviting the subversive behaviors of gossip, voyeurism and eavesdropping amongst fair visitors.
- Neri&Hu
The Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair will take place from the 5th to the 9th of February 2019.
News via: Neri&Hu
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