Forest Table, 2018, chestnut, beech 78 x 97 x 58,5 cm. Designed by Jimmie Durham for Labinac. Courtesy of the Artists and Sprovieri

LABINAC

LABINAC is a design collective founded in 2018 by Maria Thereza Alves, Jimmie Durham and Kai-Morten Vollmer, with the dual purpose of designing and making objects (furniture, chandeliers, and other elements of interior design) and supporting the design works of Indigenous peoples in Latin America, of which the artists have been staunch defenders throughout their lives.

He was initiated with the intention of being a collective open to other artists and designers. Alves and Durham invited Elisa Strinna, Jone Kvie and Victor Santamarina who through their research and their works have enhanced the range of potential ideas while also questioning the role of design today, the thin line between the arts, and the possibility for experimentation that different available materials offer.

LABINAC, Wallflower, 2018, stainless steel, Murano glass, LED light 32 x 40 x 17 cm. Designed by Jimmie Durham for LABINAC

“What a planet we live on.

Trees, rocks, animals, including ourselves and just the water and the air,

make it a place of constant delight.

A place of luxury.

River otters make clearings on the banks of rivers which they use as

slides for slipping into the water for no reason other than enjoyment.

Luxury.

LABINAC is a design collective started by Maria Thereza Alves and

Jimmie Durham with the dual purpose of designing and making things

and supporting the craft works of indigenous peoples in Latin America.”

- Labinac

The common denominator to all of LABINAC’s works remains the consistent approach to research and deep experimentation, as well as the desire to investigate the different life possibilities of each single object – or more precisely, to explore how the past life of a single de- tail combined with a new added element can create a new life, bring- ing it into coexistence with the object in a different social context.

Past and present, old and new are combined with a desire to imagine a life for the object that is not just related to the moment in which it is designed but also, and above all, to when it goes on to live in a new architecture.