As oft opined in these dispatches, one of our favourite aspects of any design week is the presentations held in national embassies, officially curated impressions of a nation's creativity that for all we appreciate and understand the degree of hoop jumping and conforming that are often necessary to being showcased, appreciations sharpened recently via many conversations in a European capital we'll refrain from naming at this juncture... despite the centralised control that regularly exists in the selection process, such showcases invariably bring forth interesting projects and one or the other new obsession.
There are and were no embassy showcases during Berlin Design Week, BDW, 2025, but at Amtsalon on Kantstrasse one of the central locations of BDW 2025, thus if one so will one of the BDW 2025 embassies, one can and could enjoy the showcase Guatemala Diseña con las Manos, a presentation curated and financed by the authorities in Guatemala, that after stops in Madrid and Milan arrived in Berlin.
A presentation of contemporary design, more accurately contemporary craft and design, from Guatamala that transcends materials and genres, and from amongst the myriad positions and approaches on show we spent a lot of time with the works of Estudio Fábrica a.k.a. Ana Claudia González and Hubert Schoba, specifically El Gran Jaguar, a rug modelled on a jaguar fur albeit one crafted not from jaguar fur but from pom-poms of textile waste, a rug that not only stands as a comment on the challenges faced by the Guatemalan jungles, their flora and fauna, nor only as a deliciously playful nudge to more nuanced reflections on our use of materials and relationships with materials, but also in a context we will return to shortly, and also by the duo's stool/ottoman Fútbol which we really liked the idea of, but less its realisation, less its use of an actual balón, a recycled, upcycled, football at its core in conjunction with sturdy metal springs and chunky metal connecting elements. Which sounds not only wrong on our part, a dissing of recycling/upcycling, but also sounds contrary to how we normally argue, but which we'll assert is consistent and correct. While having nothing against recycling or upcycling, being in many regards positively inclined to both, we just feel the core material bequeaths Fútbol a character that is diametrically at odds with the its function, it mode of use, its places of use and the possible relationships that could develop with the object. But as a concept, a joy.
And also sent a lot of time with the furniture and lighting by the collective Cinco x Cinco, yes a quintet, including the lamp Pasamanos and the chair Columpio, the latter a work, one learns, and as the name implies, formally inspired by Guatemalan playground swings. And while both Columpio and Pasamanos are realised in steel tubing, they have no relationship with 1920s and 20s steel tube furniture and lighting, although you may make that connection yourself. But that's your conditioned reading of the objects not your open conversation with the objects. And, we'd argue, while not having any relationship with 1920s and 20s steel tube furniture and lighting, they do have a relationship with the context in which El Gran Jaguar stands and to which we have already promised to return.
However we spent the greater part of our time with the works of Mira Mira a.k.a Guatemala City based ceramicist and weaver Ana Beatriz Silva, for all with the ceramic vases of the Tzukxul series. "Tzukxul" being, if we've got this correct, "sheep" in the ancient Mayan language Q`eqchí. And the vases are Tzukxul. Or could be Tzukxul. Or in our viewing could also be other animals. We saw a duck/chicken/goose. Possibly a cat. But definitely also saw a sheep.
Although not a ceramic sheep, or a ceramic duck/chicken/goose, or a ceramic cat, as depicted in the realistic pottery of the Staffordshire school of 19th century England, but more in keeping with the contemporaneous exaggerated, distorted, mangled, perverted paintings of farm animals that were all the rage.
They are sheep, animals, apparitions, with a grotesque, fantasy, hallucinated, disturbed, dilated form. And with feet. And with no heads. And with an engaging charm, vitality and warmth that draws you to them as to a real sheep. An engaging charm, vitality and warmth not least on account of the surface finish Ana Beatriz Silva has patiently bequeathed them, the way Ana Beatriz Silva has prepared their wool. And also through their feet.
Works that in their distortion and disruption of the organic of animals creates a form, a depiction, an object, more organic than the original; works that for all their playful expressiveness remain reserved, quiet, unobtrusive pieces that have real agency when empty. And we greatly imagine will have an alternative agency when filled with flowers: a sheep with tulips for a head, a duck/chicken/goose with a spray of sweet peas for a head, a cat with cat grass for a head, you can see the oil paintings of such chimeras hanging in ye olde Cabinets of Curiosities. An active use that can but enhance the grotesque via the combination of the dark malformed with colourful perfection, of the natural with the unnatural, with the subtle interplay of "normali” e “anormali" Alchimia once demanded.
Which brings us back to Estudio Fábrica's El Gran Jaguar rug and also the furniture and lighting of Cinco x Cinco, brings us back separately, independently, each in their own way; but, certainly for us, they are all works that are more than the sum of their parts and that not least because of the way they employ the conventions, traditions, predispositions of Guatemalan craft as a basis for challenging those conventions, traditions, predispositions, as a basis for further expanding, developing, evolving Guatemalan craft (and design) in context of contemporary Guatemalan society, much as in the Europe of the 1970s and 80s the conventions established in the 1920s and 30s were employed as the basis for challenging those conventions and thereby expanding, developing, evolving European design (and craft) in context of contemporary European society.
We're not saying it's identical, we're not, it isn't; we are however saying a comparison of the approaches can be made and that is very instructive on a number of levels, are saying that the expanding, developing, evolving of Guatemalan craft (and design) inherent in such works can, could, inform contemporary European craft and design: craft and design being as they are international languages with regional dialects, and intimately related.
And are thereby also saying that as a showcase Guatemala Diseña con las Manos is about more than the works on show, about a lot more than the Diseña con las Manos of the title. And about a lot more than the Guatemala of the title. Which makes it almost as satisfying as the works it presents.
More information on Mira Mira can be found at https://miramira.art
Guatemala Diseña con las Manos can be viewed at Amtsalon, Kantstraße 79, 10627 Berlin until Sunday May 18th. The showcase will, we strongly suspect, move on to a Design Week near you before all to long. See local press for details. Or see @inguatoficial if you want to see lots of tourist industry photos of Guatemala. And discover where Guatemala Diseña con las Manos will be shown next.
Further details on Berlin Design Week can be found at https://berlindesignweek.com
