Stay ConnectedIn Material Matters, host Grant Gibson talks to a designer, maker, artist, architect, engineer, or scientist about a material or technique with which they’re intrinsically linked and discovers how it changed their lives and careers.
Follow us on Instagram @materialmatters.design and our website www.materialmatters.design
Material Matters is produced and published by Delizia Media Ltd.
Copyright: © 2021 Material Matters with Grant Gibson
One of the joys of Material Matters is that it allows me to roam across disciplines. So one week I can discuss carbon fibre and Formula 1 racing with John Barnard, while in the next I could be talking taxidermy with fine artist Polly Morgan.
My guest in this episode is the excellent Sarah Wigglesworth. I think it’s fair to say that Sarah has been a pioneer of sustainable architecture through her eponymous practice. Over the years projects have included cultural centres such as Siobhan Davies Dance Studios, housing schemes like Umpire View in Harrow and Trent Basin in Nottingham, and a fistful of thoughtful, sensitively-designed schools, including Roseacres Primary School in Essex and Mellor Primary School in the Peak District.
She made her name though with her own home-cum-office, the revolutionary Stock Orchard Street, designed with partner Jeremy Till. The building, which is 20 years old this year, used a plethora of low tech materials such as rubble, sandbags and, most famously, straw bales to change the way people thought about environmentally-conscious architecture. The Straw Bale House as it was quickly nicknamed also appeared on the first-ever series of Grand Designs with Kevin McCloud.
We chat about: how four years of thinking went into Stock Orchard Street; its extraordinary palette of materials; attitudes towards sustainable architecture two decades ago; why she built with straw; the feminist agenda behind the building and making her way in a male-dominated profession; how a visit to Le Corbusier’s Ronchamp changed her life; being on the original series of Grand Designs; and designing for old age.
There’s plenty to get your teeth into (or ears around) I reckon.
Learn more about Sarah here
And sign up to my newsletter here
Jasleen Kaur is an artist, designer and maker, who graduated from the jewellery and metal course at the Royal College of Art in 2010. Since then her practice has encompassed pieces created for gallery spaces as well as work that is socially-engaged. She has described herself, rather intriguingly, as a ‘cobbler’.
Recently, she has created films and pieces of text which investigate untold histories and notions of identity that are both personal – detailing her Sikh background from Glasgow – and, in some instances, to do with this nation’s colonial past.
And, more often that not, embedded in all this somewhere is food. In a commission for the Serpentine Gallery, entitled Everyday Resistance, Kaur worked collaboratively with children and mothers from The Portman Early Childhood Centre, based in London’s Edgware, and used the micro-politics of cooking and eating together to consider and respond to issues facing the local community.
This is art with a very real purpose.
As well as exhibiting in places such as MIMA in Middlesborough, the BALTIC Centre in Gateshead, and Glasgow’s Tramway, Jasleen has also lectured at the RCA and Chelsea College of Arts.
In this episode we talk about: baking bread with mothers and children in a London Sure Start Centre; why the kitchen is a ‘site of resistance’; the part food played in her Sikh family and growing up in Glasgow; digging into history; feeling on the periphery; making bad jewellery; how her work has become more political over the years; ‘faking it’ as a product designer; oh, and we also find out who exactly does the cooking at home…
It’s a hugely personal, and frequently rather beautiful, chat.
To learn more about Jasleen's work go here
And to sign up to my newsletter go here
Alice Potts is a material researcher, who ‘explores the poetry of the human fluids’. She caused quite a storm when she graduated from the fashion department of the Royal College of Art in 2018 with a collection of crystals grown on various garments – including an extraordinary pair of ballet shoes dyed in red cabbage juice. These crystals were a little different though as they were created from the user’s own sweat. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the collection was entitled PERSPIRE and Alice was quickly picked up by some of the fashion world’s big beasts, including Nick Knight and Sarah Mower.
In 2019, she was part of the Evening Standard’s Progress 1000 – London’s most influential people and her pieces have been shown everywhere from the Onassis Foundation in Athens to the Philadelphia Museum in the US via the V&A in London. A collection of 20 facemasks fashioned from biodegradable plastic – made from food waste sourced from local food markets, butchers and households – as well as a limited edition jewellery collection made in collaboration with MIMCO is currently on show at the NGV Triennial at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.
In this episode we talk about: why she should currently be in Australia; making PPE from food waste; the importance of colour; her forgiving housemates; creating jewellery from seaweed; washing less; dealing with extreme personal trauma; accepting being different; and, last but by no means least, her obsession with sweat.
Suffice to say Alice is thoughtful, intelligent and incredibly honest. In other words she’s the perfect podcast guest.
You can find out more about Alice here
And you can sign up for my newsletter here
Thomas Thwaites was one of the first people I wanted to interview when I started Material Matters in 2019. I’m not entirely certain why it has taken so long to arrange a chat. The designer graduated from the Design Interactions course of Royal College of Art in 2009, with a piece that has gone on to become genuinely iconic.
In The Toaster Project, Thwaites set out to make this industrially manufactured product by hand. He mined his own iron ore, extracted copper from water and attempted to persuade BP to allow him onto an oil rig to bring back a jug of crude. His adventure was published as a (highly readable) book in 2011.
And not satisfied with that, a few years later this most unpredictable of creatives came up with another book. Goatman: How I took a Holiday from Being Human charted his quest to live his life as a goat and cross the Alps on all fours, eating grass along the route.
It was described by designer Anthony Dunne as ‘a wonderfully eccentric, at times absurd, but always thoughtful reflection on one man’s journey into the wilder regions of design.’
In this episode we talk about: becoming a father during the pandemic; deciding to create a toaster by hand; persuading people to do the strangest things; why his approach to design is like journalism (only more difficult); how his mother’s microwave ended up in the permanent collection of the V&A; hosting a TV show in South Korea; and, last but by no means least, his desire to become a goat.
You can learn more about Thomas here
And sign up for my newsletter here
Gregg Buchbinder is the owner of US-based furniture manufacturer, Emeco. The Electrical Machine and Equipment Company was founded in 1944 and quickly created the 1006 chair for the US Navy. The piece, made out of recycled aluminium, has gone on to become a design classic but its story is far from straightforward.
By the time Buchbinder bought the firm from his father in 1998, its factory in Hanover, Pensylvania was on the edge of closure. He pumped its chest with a roster of high profile designers and pieces, starting with the Hudson chair by Philippe Starck in 2000.
Since then the company has gone on to work with the likes of Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry, Michael Young, Jasper Morrison and Nendo to name just a few.
Not only that but Emeco has been innovative with its use of materials too. In 2010, the company launched a new version of the Navy Chair made from 111 recycled Coca Cola bottles, finding a new use for plastic that otherwise would have been destined for landfill. Further research into the material led it to produce the On & On chair, designed by Barber Osgerby, and so called because it can be recycled endlessly.
This is a company with a singular vision – and that belongs to Gregg.
In this episode we talk about: manufacturing during a pandemic; the 77 processes (count ’em) needed to create the Navy chair; why it was made from recycled aluminium; working with the likes of Frank Gehry and Terence Conran; his relationship with his father; the shift in client base from the US military to up-market architects and designers; the effect Starck had on the company; collaborating with everyone from Coca Cola to the local Amish community; and taking copycats to court.
You can find out more about Emeco here
And sign up for my newsletter here
Yinka Ilori started his practice from his parents’ back garden in 2011, after receiving a £3000 loan from the Prince’s Trust. Initially, the designer made his name by creating a string of chairs, notable for their strong use of colour that came from his Nigerian heritage, and a profound sense of narrative – the pieces were often based on the stories of old school friends and parables his parents told him as a child.
However, after creating his eponymous studio in 2017, the scale of his work started to change. Happy Street is a permanent installation in a Battersea underpass, for instance, while The Colour Palace – a timber pavilion inspired by markets in Lagos – was installed in the grounds of the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2019. More recently his public art installation, in support of the NHS, at London’s Blackfriars brought joy at a moment when it was desperately needed. Written in bright pink letters it said simply: ‘Better Days Are Coming, I promise.’
According to architect Sir David Adjaye: ‘His furniture transcends just function and product and acts as a device for cultural memory.’ Yinka was awarded an MBE in the 2021 New Year’s Honours List.
In this episode we talk about: launching his new homeware collection during lockdown; discovering he was part of a new design movement on Dezeen; feeling he had to change his design language to fit in, before discovering his own voice; using chairs to tell stories; the power of colour; and why his work has got bigger. And, trust me, there’s lots more besides.
You can find out more about Yinka's work here
And you can sign up to my newsletter here
Stuart Haygarth is an artist and designer who works with the stuff that other people throw away. After beginning his career as a photographer and illustrator, he burst onto the design scene in 2005 at Designersblock in London’s Shoreditch with a pair of extraordinary chandeliers. Millennium was made from a series of party poppers he’d collected on the first morning of the year 2000, while Tide comprised of flotsam and jetsam picked up over several years from the Kent coastline. Subsequently other pieces have used the tail lights of cars and spectacle frames.
He has exhibited around the globe, including: the V&A and Gallery Libby Sellers in London, The Lighthouse in Glasgow and DesignMiami. There has also been a solo show at the Carpenters Workshop Gallery in Paris.
As the critic and former director of the Design Museum, Deyan Sudjic, has written, Stuart ‘has a gift for placement and a colour sense that give the mundane a sumptuous, tactile quality… He finds richness in the traces that wind and weather leave on humble materials and that can give dignity to even the most tawdry of things.’
In this episode we talk about: his interest in abandoned objects; why he’s neither a designer nor a fine artist; his obsession with collecting; not being an eco-designer; walking 500 miles along England’s south coast to pick up detritus; the problem with German beaches; and trying to make sense of the world through his work.
You can find out more about Stuart here
And you can sign up to my newsletter here
Juli Bolaños-Durman is an artist and sculptor best known for her work with cut and engraved recycled glass. She was born and raised in Costa Rica, initially studying graphic design. However, in 2010 she moved to Edinburgh to take an MA in her chosen material and her career took off.
Her beautifully colourful, joyfully decorative, genuinely jaunty pieces have been exhibited at the V&A in London, Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, Somerset’s Make Hauser & Wirth, Design Days Dubai and the Corning Glass Museum in the US. Over the years, she has also received commissions from the National Glass Centre Collection in Sunderland as well as the Royal Edinburgh Hospital.
In 2015 she won an Elle Decoration British Design Award, while in 2017 she was selected for the prestigious Jerwood Makers Open.
In this episode we talk about: staying creative during lockdown; growing up in Costa Rica; taking the decision to move to Scotland; the importance of play; how reuse is a rebellious act; her relationship with colour; making art more accessible; and why a simple jug might really want to be an astronaut (no, really it might).
You can learn more about Juli here
And you can sign up to my newsletter here
Usually on Material Matters I speak to a combination of designers, architects, artists or makers. This episode is a little bit different.
Steve Barron is a multi-award winning movie and television director, who made his name in the eighties with a slew of iconic videos featuring artists such as: Michael Jackson, Dire Straits, A-ha, Madonna, Paul McCartney, David Bowie and The Jam to name just a few. Subsequently, he segued into films – directing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Coneheads, and Mike Bassett: England manager – as well as the small screen, with recent credits including The Durrells on the BBC.
However, in 2016 he established Margent Farm on a 53-acre site in the Cambridgeshire countryside where he grows hemp – a rather magical but misunderstood crop, which has an array of possible uses and the potential to change all our lives for the better. Not only that but he used the crop as the key material to build his own farm house, designed by Practice Architecture.
In this episode we talk about: deciding to farm hemp in the first instance; its potential as a building material, in cooking, and for the fashion world; persuading the government of hemp’s import; why it should not be confused with Marijuana; Steve’s early career working with the likes of A-ha; and making the groundbreaking Billie Jean video with a certain Michael Jackson.
It’s eclectic stuff.
You can find out more about Margent Farm here
And you can sign up to my newsletter here
As regular listeners will know the idea behind the show is that I speak to a designer, maker, artist or architect about a material or technique with which they’re intrinsically linked and discover how it changed their lives and careers. However, every once in a while I mix the format up a bit and talk to someone who has an overview of the design world. This is one of those occasions.
Paola Antonelli is senior curator at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in the Department of Architecture & Design, as well as the institution’s founding director of Research and Development.
Over more than 25 years at the museum, she’s curated shows such as: Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design, Workspheres, and Design and the Elastic Mind. Most recently, she has been responsible for Broken Nature in Milan’s Triennale in 2019 and Neri Oxman: Material Ecology.
She has lectured and given talks all over the world and picked up a fistful of awards, including 2020’s London Design Medal.
In collaboration with writer Alice Rawsthorn, her latest project, entitled Design Emergency, is a series of interviews on Instagram, which investigate design’s importance during the pandemic.
In this episode we discuss: coping with the crisis at MoMA; why she co-created Design Emergency as the virus took hold; falling into curating; the importance of rejection; creating the museum’s first-ever website; and how computer code is as fragile as ceramics.
Find out more about MoMA here
And you can sign up to my newsletter here
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
