Post-Folkloric trends
How local narratives foster design
By exploiting the roots and traditions of Slovakian young designers and with only two collections, Flower for Slovakia managed to put the country on the map of emerging design.
picture: Twist me — Štefan Nosko
Traditions and craft in modern times
Flower for Slovakia is a unique initiative in Europe. Based in Slovakia it aims to unite both creative talents and businesses in a promotion of a particular state that is Slovakia. By reuniting young designers and helping them through cooperation with established Slovakian brand, they achieve to create unique collections that combine the local tradition, industrial craft and current creativity of the country.
Michala Lipkova, one of the organizers of the project, recognizes that design is now a global phenomenon, but that there are opportunities to differentiate through national identity. “ We still believe that identity of a country can be recognized through design, that design can make local product unique by its origin, and this way stand out in the competition. We don’t want to talk about American, Asian or European design, but more particularly about the design of individual countries.” In order to do so the NGO gives the opportunity to a young group of designer to take part in a workshop in collaboration with a Slovakian firm. There, they create exclusive pieces using the expertise of the firm while receiving advice and feedback from more experienced designers.
The result can be seen in the two exhibitions: Handle with care and lost and found by Vitra. Michala Lipkova chose one piece for each exhibition and told us more about it.
Handle with care
Handle with Care is a glass design collection that presents twelve conceptual objects inspired by Slovak folk legends and fairy tales. The collection was produced in cooperation with AJETO in Nový Bor, with the support of LASVIT.
picture: The White Lady of Levoča — Jakub Pollág
„A Girl That Went to Fetch Water“ is a title for a glass jar designed by Peter Simoník. The object tells an old story about a girl who went to fetch water across a Yeomen’s garden. There she met a man who broke her jug. As she burst into tears, he tried to console her. The man offered her a coin, carriage and a castle, but the girl refused them all. She chose love instead. The fragile object, using handles of a leather handbags, reflects on contemporary phenomenon of so-called „gold-diggers“, girls who dispregard true values for profit and comfort. In Slovak we say, that they „go for the water until their jar breaks“.
Lost & Found
“Produced two years later, this collection is an original set of furniture and interior accessories. The basic creative process of the selected students this time was linking the traditional Slovak folk furniture types with unmistakable aesthetic of Vitra elements. Poetics of Slovak folk art and craft is thus materialized in unique authorial “ready mades” carrying message of everyday object being used more than 100 years ago.”
Picture: Nest -Natália Hoosová
Dana Tomečková
“This bench, titled „Everybody at home“ was redesigned by Dana Tomečková and it is part of the Lost and Found by Vitra collection. The original object comes from the municipality Malacky, where the father of a family Lajoš carved it in the late of the 19th century. It was designed to sit at the table. Five generations used to sit, meet and get older here. It was always crowded. Today, it grew into a place for followers of the family tradition. They sit there all along, even though they are not visible. The unique constriction allows you to sit on the bench’s new seat (piece of Vitra chair), against the rules of physics, without being „outbalanced“.”
First noticed at the DMY festival in 2014 and touring around the world, F4sk is definitely a good ambassador for the creative scene in Slovakia. Michala also believes that the furniture design medium has the power to convey those stories to a broader audience than contemporary art. “Unlike contemporary art, design has the advantage of being „close“ to everyone. People use furniture everyday, they understand its functions, therefore they can read the message very quickly and they can recognize the added value of the exhibited objects. In our case – the added value is the story of Slovakia.”
