Divine gifts
The Divina exhibition stopped in Dubai, with five global artists revealing contemporary interpretations of the legendary fabric
id Design Awards judge Richard Hutten takes us on a tour of the Kvadrat Maharam Divina exhibition during its stop in Dubai. After premiering at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan, Kvadrat took their Divina exhibition on a global road-show including a presentation in Dubai.
Created in 1984 by Danish painter and graphic artist Finn Sködt (who is still designing for the company’s fabric line), the Divina fabric has long been an inspiration to designers because of its dynamic use of colour. It is a full-cloth textile with a smooth, directionless and uniform surface; similar to felt.
The show has been initiated and is presented by Kvadrat’s VP Branding and Communication and show curator, Njusja de Gier, who revealed the company’s showcase of the revolutionary fabric, which has also been used to create this year’s id Awards gift bags.
Held in the Kvadrat Maharam showroom, the presentations included works from five artists: Smock by Max Lamb, Day bed by Muller Van Severen, Layers Clouds Chair by Richard Hutten, Jib by Peter Marigold and Garlands by Studio Minale-Maeda.
Richard Hutten’s Layers Clouds Chair was a pensive and playful meditation on the properties of the fabric. His chair was created with no less than 545 layers in almost 100 colours and 840 square metres of Divina, stacked on top of each other, weighing a total of almost 300 kilograms. Due to the nature of the fabric, the lower part of the chair is looser, with a compact and solid top. Each layer of the chair was drawn separately, the colours carefully selected and individually cut and applied by hand.
“The Layers Clouds Chair shows off the beautiful colours available in the fabric, and was inspired by the Painted Desert in Arizona,” Richard Hutten explains. “I wanted the design to be about Divina. Rather than using the material as a cover, I created an object with the material. It has so many intrinsic qualities of tactility, depth and colour, and my design maximises the impact of these.”
Studio Minale-Maeda’s Garlands uses flowers as a point of inspiration, celebrating the strength of the material by exploring levels of scale to create the final installation of four vertical garlands. “The smooth non-woven-like surface, its strong colours, its crispness, and the fact that its edges do not fray when cut all reminded us more of paper than fabric. Yet the material has more presence and quality than paper,” the studio comments.
Max Lamb’s Smock explores how the durable qualities of Divina make it ideal for workwear. “The fisherman’s smock has been an essential outer layer of workwear for British fishermen for over a century, and is a classic example of functional, utilitarian clothing that has since been adopted by painters, sculptors, potters, and craftsmen alike,” says the Cornwall native. The smock’s short sleeves prevent the cuffs from getting wet or dirty, while the generous cut and high neck ensure maximum comfort and protection from whatever conditions are at play.
Muller Van Severen’s Day Bed is a daybed created by Fien Muller and Hannes Van Severen that uses three clearly different coloured pieces of textile. “We wanted to accentuate the three parts of the daybed – the side where you lie, the side where you sit, and the cushion you have to share,” they explain. Their daybed explores the combination of, and confrontation between, something with a clear purpose and something that is also sensitive and warm.
Jib by Peter Marigold is named after the main sail of a boat. Each of his stools is created with individually upholstered parts. The twist: during the assembly the parts become asymmetrically skewed, so that one seems to be jumping on to the next, giving the whole a playful spirit. The units can be adapted to incorporate longer parts to create a bench, or whatever the user needs.