Singapore and Barcelona designers Outofstock presented floating islands made of crumpled copper and moss during the inaugural International Furniture Fair Singapore this month.
Inspired by the fictional floating island of Laputa featured in Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, the installation for their own showcase called The Workshop Gallery hung inside a Tyvek tent on a city-centre street.
The moss was harvested from unnoticed nooks and crannies in the city like tree trunks and drains.”The intention was to let visitors view the moss up close, appreciating the nature that thrives unseen around us,” says Gabriel Tan from Outofstock.
See more work by Outofstock on Dezeen here.
Photographs are by Ng Xin Nie.
Here are some more details from Outofstock:
A meditative space, an introspective journey. Imaginary landscapes we create to escape the banality of city life.
The installation is inspired by Laputa, from Gulliver’s travels, a fictional flying island created by a small civilization of educated mathematicians, astronomers and musicians. Set in the heart of the city, Laputa is a juxtaposition of its context – the urban city. We live in a society full of products and information, flawed value systems, and endless material pursuits, noise and visual clutter. Perhaps, it is only in such a fictional landscape that we can finally make sense of our increasingly surreal realities.
Every piece of the hanging installation was unique in its formation and the way it was crinkled, the more facets and ‘imperfections’ appeared, the more they bore the uncanny resemblance to miniature hills and valleys. The unfinished copper was allowed to weather with the natural elements and produce a changing patina, in this way both copper and moss were continually growing alongside each other.
The Workshop Gallery is founded by Outofstock as a space dedicated to their passion for handcrafted objects.
Bruno Munari once said, ”If what we use every day is made with art, and not thrown together by chance or caprice, then we shall have nothing to hide.” The Workshop Gallery too seeks to bring us objects that rekindle our long-lost contact with the art of making in our daily lives.
