Formafantasma / The Netherlands

Studio Formafantasma, Amsterdam design studio
the Netherlands est. 2009
Andrea Trimarchi designer
Italy born 1983, worked in the Netherlands 2009
Simone Farresin designer
Italy born 1980, worked in the Netherlands 2009

Amsterdam-based Studio Formafantasma rigorously investigates materials in order to design objects that disrupt the historical, political and social status quo. Created for the NGV Triennial, Ore streams, 2016–17, is a collection of critical design objects that look at materials and their origins; and in particular challenge the validity of industrial design and manufacturing systems and standards for electronic devices – products that ultimately become electronic waste – opening up future opportunities for above-ground mining.

Gold in particular is an essential material for the manufacturing of electronics – yet where the gold is obtained from is at times unclear. The rapidly growing trade in electronic waste and the increasing value of the metals it encapsulates creates space for an often murky commodity market rife with illegal activity.

The set of objects within the NGV Triennial, formally based on commercial office furniture, question modernist design objectives, such as standardisation, universal style, efficiency and modularity. By revealing the invisibility of material origins within contemporary products, Formafantasma reveal how designers, who define what materials will become, can fail to consider or to communicate the sources or potential afterlife of the products they create.

BIO

Italian design duo, Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin are the co-founders of Studio Formafantasma, a research-based design practice, based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Their work has been presented and published internationally including acquisitions by New York’s MoMA, London’s Victoria and Albert, New York’s Metropolitan Museum, the Chicago Art Institute, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, MUDAC Lausanne, the Mint Museum of Craft and Design in North Carolina and the MAK Museum in Vienna.

Andrea and Simone are teaching at the Well Being and Contextual Design Departments of the Design Academy Eindhoven and have been head of Design bachelor at MADE Program in Siracusa, Italy since 2016.