corn craft: a project by gallery fumi and studio too good

wheat table by raw-edges design studio, 2009 dry wheat, wood, pegboard image © designboom

corn craft marks the first collaboration between gallery fumi and studio toogood. a project which is on show as part of london design week 09, corn craft draws on traditional folk culture. bringing together art and design, the result is a contemporary installation based around the sustainable and natural material of corn. each of the designers have taken the common material, each engaging with the corn in completely different way. one-off pieces by nacho carbonell, raw edges design studio, max lamb, gemma holt and rowan mersh form the whole of the show.

wooden frames and peg board form the support for the shafts of wheat image © designboom

the wheat table by raw-edges design studio is a domesticated indoor field which is made of dry wheat which has been ‘planted’ squarely inside overlapping wooden frames. dishes are put on top of the wheat as if they were floating.

approximately 12, 000 shafts of wheat were used to construct the table image © designboom

the wheat is ‘planted’ into holes in the peg board, allowing them to stay upright image © designboom

detail of how the wheat stays planted image © designboom

the result is a table which looks like a field of wheat image © designboom

the density of the wheat creates a surface in which bowls and plates can be placed image © designboom

plates nestle within the wheat shafts, as if to be floating upon a field of wheat image © designboom

various color samples from nacho carbonell’s experimentation with corn image © designboom

nacho carbonell’s installation crop is intended to stimulate a space inside a corn field. the process of his design involved breaking down the grains into a fine powder so that he could mix them with an adhesive to form the beginnings of a malleable material. a variety of methods were used to create a powder – from traditional manual farm apparatus, to electronic kitchen blenders. a traditional manual juicer was used to extract the corn’s pigments, which eventually dissolved in the adhesive and later mixed with powder grain. a variety of pigments for coloring the grain were tested. those which were most successful were the ones derived from natural sources such as grass and the laves of the corn plant. the motivation behind nacho’s research was to investigate the many colors and textures the corn grain could produce.

left sample: 40g wheat / 40 g yellow corn / 12g beatroot juice right sample: pure black corn image © designboom

left sample: yellow corn and ink right sample: 80g ground corn / 89 g corn plant juice image © designboom

crop by nacho carbonell, 2009 corn resin, corn juice, ground corn, barley, wheat, oats, cornflakes, steel rod reinforcements image © designboom

carbonell’s installation consists of several pieces which explore the colors, movement and lushness of corn. the pieces were built using materials found in a field.

image courtesy of tom mannion

each individual piece of crop has its own intimate space image © designboom

detail of the texture image © designboom

the paste of corn resin, ground corn and various grains has been pushed trough a wire mesh to get the desired forms image © designboom

a color and texture sample of the processed corn image © designboom

demonstrating how the new material can be applied by using it to make a chair image © designboom

detail of the chair’s texture image © designboom

untitled by rowan mersh, 2009 bearded wheat, shet, barley, oats image © designboom

mersh is a textile designer and he has installed a sight specific installation of hanging wheat which is meant to encapsulate the spirit of rural england’s rolling hills. over 40,000 individual pieces of corn, strung onto mono-filament line have been used in the development of the installation.

various shades and types of grains were used image © designboom

grains which are bent have not been treated by an oven image © designboom

alpha glass by max lamb and gemma holt for lobmeyr glass image courtesy of tom mannion

alpha is a mouth-blown glass by max lamb and gemma holt for lobmeyr craftsmen. the glass is placed on a tiny stone wheel, in which a skillful act of a nudge is placed upon the glass’ surface, creating a barley shaped engraving, the grain of the stone like fibres of a barley husk.

alpha glass image © designboom

detail of the barley shaped engraving image courtesy of tom mannion

wheat shafts which remain straight are those whose moisture has been extracted via an oven image © designboom

general view image © designboom

exhibition view image © designboom

image courtesy of tom mannion