Tête-à-Tête | Partner Program

FANTASTICAL

Austin Ballard
Ridgewood, NY
Rumors

Austin Ballard constructs immersive, domestic settings with his fantastical furniture fabricated out of cane webbing and epoxy clay. Intended as functional sculptures, the forms are reminiscent of iconic Victorian furniture. Combining contemporary technologies with handicrafts, Ballard’s work conflates innovation and tradition, man-made and natural materials, high and low art, subverting societal and cultural assumptions of gender and labor associated with weaving, as well as with contemporary art. The inventive upholstery which covers the furniture forms also question the relationship between domesticity and leisure in an age of constant, digital interfacing.

Having grown up in North Carolina, where the textile industry historically played a fundamental and utilitarian role, Ballard seeks ways to make art approachable and accessible. He utilizes traditional techniques of textile pattern-making, cane weaving, natural dying and ceramic slab-building. Ballard pushes epoxy clay through the underside of the webbing to create a dotted, outer surface that evokes a digital reproduction, such as a landscape of pixels, screen printing or a three-dimensionally printed object. Ballard’s intention is to create ‘shameful works’ with the artist’s hand and labor revealed in contrast to high-end, minimal, modern furniture.

Referencing the scrolling woven patterns of early 19th century wicker chairs by Heywood-Wakefield, Ballard reimagines the tete-a-tete in both its specificity of function and otherworldly design. Ballard suggests the furniture forms retain, ‘a quirky intimacy, and offer a place for gossip and rumors to not only be shared in private, but be performed.’

FUNCTIONAL

Anastasios Kokoris
Westport, CT
Nautilus (Come Out of Your) Shell

This design is based on the sublime geometry of the nautilus shell. The seats and canopies provide comfort, shelter, and encourage open discussion of ideas and free expression of emotions. Geometry and orientation encourage the holding of hands at the center of the composition.

Above all, architecture must be functional. Design parameters such as site characteristics, solar orientation, building codes, and construction budgets are necessary elements that give specific shape and form to a final configuration of structure and space. The visual aspects and aesthetic presence of the design must be a natural outcome of the functional problem-solving process. The critical transition from a conceptual design to a physical structure requires constant attention, seamless guidance and frequent physical presence on the construction site.

COLLABORATIVE

Kristyna Milde & Marek Milde
Brooklyn, NY
Homescape

A living sculpture reframing and elevating the environment, transforming the landscape into a bench to create a space for a dialogue. Made of a sturdy aluminum frame that is filled with soil and planted with different mosses, evergreen ferns, and perennial plants to reflect the local diversity. It invites visitors to sit down, rest and relax and experience the sensuality of natural materials.

Our art practice investigates the shifting culture-nature relationship, themes of environmental deprivation, and alienation from place and land. We create sculptures, installations, and public art projects that explore a variety of models in which design and built spaces function as interactive platforms for direct environmental experience. We are interested in changing the passive consumerist role of the audience into an active participatory one and developing a sensible design, places, and environments that don’t remove but promote experience. In our projects, we aim to address the current fragmentation and virtualization of life while creating awareness of our inherent environmental connections.