Olsson och Gerthel x Swedese x Lab La Bla: Shape-shifters
Shape-shifters is an artistic collaboration between Swedese, Olsson & Gerthel, and Lab La Bla. This collab takes on Swedish furniture history and traditional craft with a contemporary focus, examining how small changes in processes and materials affect the overall expression of an object. The Shape-shifters project shows interpretations of Swedese's iconic armchair Lamino and the Flower table.
Lab La Bla-minos is an interpretation of a Swedish furniture celebrity – the Lamino armchair – based on a number of stories from Lamino users. The stories all have one thing in common; they tend to describe Lamino as a person rather than a piece of furniture. The collective memories found in these stories have been shaped into three different expressions – Shape-shifts.
The second interpretation by Lab La Bla is based on an analysis of the production process behind the Flower table, exploring what new design languages can be hidden in a well-proven and specialized process. The tables have been turned, mirrored, extended, and stacked on top of each other – thus interpreted in a completely new design. This shape-shift can be seen as a dialogue between material, shape, and process, where the molded ash wood and the lacquered masking tape create a sketch-like condition.
Lab La Bla is a Malmö-based design studio run by Axel Landström and Victor Isaksson Pirtti. Shape-shifters will be shown at Olsson & Gerthel in Malmö from 19 May to 11 June 2022, with an opening event during Southern Sweden Design Days, May 19-22.