BRICK TEXTILES - WEAVING BRICKS BACK INTO ARCHITECTURE

With their material installation “Brick Textiles - Weaving bricks back into architecture,” Natural Material Studio and material translator Zuzanna Skurka want to re-think the symbolic, tectonic and semiotics around bricks to create an expanded understanding for architecture today and for the future. When we look at the brick, it is almost a synonym with solid, structural, protective, shielding walls. But what if bricks could also represent the opposite qualities and properties - soft, flexible, tactile, transparent? Their material installation for Alcova this year is aimed to explore a new materiality and geo-politic reflections based on Polish postwar bricks.

From her studio and workshop south of Copenhagen (DK), creative director Bonnie Hvillum has transformed years of immersive material and interaction research into Natural Material Studio. Leading a small and dedicated team, the output of Natural Material Studio aims to expand our collective understanding of material conceptions through artistic research, design, and spatial installations. Collaborations and commissions allow the studio to work cross-disciplinary and systemically, turning research orientated processes into works and exhibitions that explore phenomenological and speculative themes in relation to materials, cultural norms, nature and potential futures. The clients of the studio ranges from Adidas to Snohetta and further to Design Museum Denmark.