Barbican Collection: Language for a Brutalist Object Series
Product Texts & Voice Direction
A design studio launching a sculptural collection needed language that could match the conceptual rigor of the work. The pieces are made from recycled materials and reimagine luxury through scarcity and experimentation.
I developed product descriptions that mirror the collection's material logic. The language grounds abstract concepts in process and materiality, letting the work's philosophy emerge through concrete detail rather than conceptual explanation.
Selected Copy
Barbican London | 2020
A Space presents a brutalist collection that redefines luxury through experimental materials and process. The sculptural furniture, lighting, and decorative pieces draw upon the aesthetic of the Barbican whose respect for the passage of time lends objects an imperfect and thoughtful beauty. Made using painstaking experimental techniques, the collection responds to changing circumstances in the world, both past and present.
The design duo conceived the Barbican Collection over the spring/summer of 2020 while on lockdown at the eponymous London architectural and cultural landmark. With supplies scarce, they turned away from materials such as marble and turned to what was on hand: cardboard, packaging materials, foam, food containers, and scraps of wood and metal.
Fine Art Brutalist Object Series
Value emerges through process—the time spent creating unique materials, discovering how they inform both technique and form.
Made using a fusion of methods learned and reinterpreted from places as different as Western and Eastern Europe, USA, Vietnam, and Japan, the work maintains a connection with something global and eternal, while responding to what is currently happening in the world.
The Barbican Collection calls into focus the process of reusing and recycling materials through an unexpected combination of tradition and experimentation. Crafted with an original mixture based on gypsum, recycled paper, and natural glue and finished with natural pigments and a waterproof topcoat, the pieces are both light and durable, their layered construction reflecting hours of handwork. Each explores luxury redefined through material transformation.
