EXHIBITION
The Invisibles: Historic Furniture from a Contemporary Design Perspective.
Exhibition: The Invisibles. Historic Furniture from a Contemporary Design Perspective
Place: Museum of Applied Arts and Design @nacionalinisdailesmuziejus
Curators: Monika Lipšic (@magnetlink), Vytautas Gečas (@vytautas_gecas), Marija Puipaitė (@marijapuipaite)
Photos: Darius Petrulaitis (@dpetrulaitis)
| TEXTILE PIECE |
PEARL & SHELL
| CIRCULAR / FLAT KNITTING |
MONOFILAMENT | POLYESTER | VISCOSE
Vilnius, Lithuania
2022.03.24 – 2023.02.28
IN LARGE SCALE explores the aesthetic properties of the oyster in three-dimensional knitted surfaces. Each textile piece is a re-imagination of one part of the oyster; the shell, the nacre, the flesh, and the pearl. Inspired by Botticelli’s painting Venus. The textiles are hand knitted on industrial knitting machines with viscous, monofilament, and shrinking polyester. This four-piece collection is a love letter to the ancient oysters. A reminder that even small things can have a big impact on the world.
The oyster is a body and an interior space
The starting point for this work was the multifaceted oyster which is an animal with a
mirrored double-sided exoskeleton, a living thing that carries its own house. This knitted collection
was designed and developed after the same principle. The knitted tubes are scales to fit a human body, however, as stand-alone pieces in an interior space, they become separate parts of the oyster. The pieces are adaptable to context, like the oyster which has been adapted by humans for various
purposes through the centuries.
mirrored double-sided exoskeleton, a living thing that carries its own house. This knitted collection
was designed and developed after the same principle. The knitted tubes are scales to fit a human body, however, as stand-alone pieces in an interior space, they become separate parts of the oyster. The pieces are adaptable to context, like the oyster which has been adapted by humans for various
purposes through the centuries.
Oysters have four main parts; the shell, the nacre, the flesh, and the pearl. It is multifaceted in itself. The Bivalvia, lime shell with its ruffles-like layers and sharp-edged hides a smooth inside layer of mother of pearl. This layer acts as a protecting layer for the flesh against the rough shell and works as a guard, creating shiny circular pearls from foreign objects if they penetrate the shell. The flesh is the animal, with a brain.
Oysters’ binary qualities have made them adaptable to the different contexts where they have been placed. The knitted structure is strong but vulnerable to errors. Unlike a shell which is hard and unbending, the knit is flexible and soft. To use knitting to explore shell shapes is to explore rigid objects in a flexible structure.
