“At first glance, the Curve Gallery at the Barbican looks as if it has been transformed into a glorified gallery gift shop. Step inside, however, and you will notice that the objects adorning the sleek lacquered tabletop units possess an element of the surreal and idiosyncratic, including hacksaw shaped bread boards and tiny wind up music boxes.
This is the Design Den – the Barbican’s answer to a pop-up shop, keeping intact a design aesthetic befitting of its Brutalist location. Focusing on the applied arts, and in conjunction with DesignMarketo — ‘a platform that diffuses up-and-coming designers’ small or limited productions’ – the consumer cultural experience comes alive. (…)
Hato Press, a specialty printing and publishing house based near London Fields, showcase small notebooks of illustrations collated from test prints and mistakes in their studio. Their expertise in screen and Risograph print processes create beautifully constructed art books. Elsewhere, design fuses with humour, from the Ty DIY Edition Shower Curtain with marker pen (create your perfect shower curtain) to Amandine Alessandra’s In Rainbow Veritas, a plain white bistro tablecloth that reveals a flower blossom pattern when wine, curry sauce or tea is spilt on it. (…)”

Rosie Higham-Stainton, http://hackneycitizen.co.uk/

Design Den
The Curve
Barbican Centre, Silk Street
London, EC2Y 8DS
Until 23 December 2011
Mon – Sat 10am – 8pm
Sun 12 noon – 8pm

The Coffee & Friends edition of the In Vino Veritas tableclothes is part of the collection DesignMarketo selected for its shop in a shop at the Barbican Art Centre during the show Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown, Gordon Matta-Clark, Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s.

In vino veritas (wine reveals the truth) is a plain white tablecloth that only reveals its damask pattern
as wine is spilled on it. (Perfect for clumsy guests!)

This is part of a research on ephemeral stencils, looking into “programming” a shape or word to appear, evolve and disappear according to changesin its environment. Traditionally, damasks were woven in a single colour, with a glossy warp-faced satin pattern against a duller ground, causing the thread to reflect the light differently according to the position of the observer. I liked the idea of a pattern that would only be revealed under certain circumstances, just as truth and secrets would.

The tannin can be fixated by washing the tablecloth in cold water with 1kg of salt instead of laundry powder, although this may cause the color to change accordingly to the wine used. (See below)

In vino veritas tableclothes will be shown and sold during the Milan Furniture Fair, in the Foodmarketo pop-up shop/gallery. FoodMarketo is a joint project by Apartamento magazine and DesignMarketo.
Where: Milan, Via Masera in front of n.10
at the Kaleidoscope space.
When: 13-18 April 2010

While staying in Canada last winter, I became curious of the side effects of salt being used on snowy roads, and then dumped along with tons of snow in the nearest river. After laying a stenciled word on the grass, I covered it with salt, and then removed the paper. What was left was the word always neatly traced in the grass by the white crystals, bound to melt and disappear.

For weeks, I regularly went back to the site to photograph the evolution of the letterform. I noted that as the salt letters were slowly fading away, the grass surrounding it started to die, burnt by the sodium, leaving a well defined scare in the green surface, where I don’t expect anything to grow for a while.

It seems that although the word disappeared, the mark will always be there, unlike the grass which will never grow again.