I am surrounded by an army of black paper ants, which appear to be picking away pieces of Manami Hayasaki’s intricate cutout scenes. Amongst fairytale trees sprouting sinister hands as roots, wary-looking animals, dragonflies and feisty stag beeles, the ants scatter across the gallery walls carrying off their loot.
Project B (2009)
Listening in to Twitter is fun. The stress is obviously starting to show for William Knight the deputy director of the London Design Festival, as he makes an out of character stab at journalist Barbara Chandler.
Luke Jerram’s biomedical glass pieces are objects of beauty despite their unsavoury subject matter. Based on microscopic images of killer viruses, he worked with skilled glass blowers and Bristol University virologists, to create a series of translucent interpretations of these commonly feared diseases.
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I grew up in an area of Brooklyn, New York, called Fort Greene, a beautiful neighbourhood but flanked by some of the worst social housing in the city.
In America we refer to social housing as the ‘projects’, and they are places to be avoided: a collection of multi-story brick apartment blocks with small, grilled windows and concrete surroundings, devoid of emotion. Although the aesthetic might change slightly, I’ve found that when it comes to social housing, this environment tends to be the norm in most of the major cities around the world.
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Amidst pricy bits of so-called “design art” (Stuart Haygarth chandelier, £12,000 to £18,000; Tom Price Meltdown chair, £4,000 to £6,000), Sir Paul Smith collected the London Design Medal at Phillips de Pury auction house in Victoria on Wednesday evening. Sir John Sorrell called him a “design hero” so we got two for the price of one.
