“And then there’s a couple of people that are using hi-tech techniques like 3D printing to produce their work, so it’s really broad.”
One of those 3D printed pieces was the cylindrical concrete Cord Bench by Singapore designer Nathan Yong, which he produced with local company CES Innovfab.
“It’s kind of like crossed fingers where they start to interlock with each other,” says Yong of the hollow structure. “People expect concrete to be blocky and very brutal, but I wanted to bring out a softer, almost handmade side, more lightweight.
“We never expect concrete to be beautiful, so I think there’s a new appreciation when new technology comes in.”
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This is the second time Yong has presented at Emerge, after exhibiting a pair of hand-hammered aluminium tables at 2022’s inaugural show, which focused on materiality.
Yong is a veteran of the Singapore design industry and one of the drawcards to the event, where a conscious decision was made by the organisers to include pieces by established designers to increase foot traffic to the show, to the benefit of the emerging ones.
Hans Tan is another of those prominent designers. The Singaporean’s works have been shown in exhibitions worldwide, including in the permanent public collection at the M+ museum in Hong Kong.
His pendant lampshades at Emerge were originally made for his own home, printed in his studio in a single shot as a hollow shell with no support material inside or outside the shell, achieving zero waste.
“People think when they first look at the series of lamps that they look like porcelain,” says Tan. “So that’s one checkbox ticked. But they’re actually 3D printed with ABS plastic.”
Tan provides the printable files on his website for free for people to print for their own use in the hope they can enjoy a piece of his home in theirs.
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Another Singaporean exhibitor who manufactured his designs is David Lee, who worked in two factories to create his Jekyll & Hyde Bench and Lamp.
Working with the idea of crafting furniture from a single piece of material, in this case aluminium, Lee laser-cut the shape of his bench from a sheet of metal, machine-bent the first two folds, then hand-shaped the final. Two processes, two factories.
While these designs, and others such as Tribe Screen by Thailand’s Saruta “Pin” Kiatparkpoom; Tarp Chair by Singapore’s Wei Xiang Tan; Ban Table by Vietnam’s Thomas Vincent; and Churros Chair by Thailand’s Anon Pairot presented at the more industrial end of the scale, others softened the space with an ancient crafting sensibility.
Hana Surya, founder and creative director of Threadapeutic, a small band of fabric-focused artisans in Indonesia, hung three pieces of textile art: Harvest, Mountain and Valley, each made predominantly from waste fabric or offcuts.
“We process it with a technical fabric manipulation, then it’s done by layering mindfully: hand-stitching, machine-sewing and then hand-cutting and brushing,” says Surya.
Her Harvest piece is personal. “It was an old sari given to me by my son-in-law,” she says. “It belonged to his grandmother who passed away. I combined it with Indonesian silk offcuts. So, it’s like a marriage of different cultures and different countries.
“It plays with colour gradation and turned out very beautifully with the shimmer that comes from the silk itself.”
Singaporean Tiffany Loy’s three woven panels with white abaca fibre and neon polyester yarn, and Indonesian Budiman Ong’s banana-fibre paper lampshades, also highlighted the delicateness of hand-detailing.
So did Ong’s handcrafted Terumbu Carpet, albeit much larger in scale. The fibre was produced from recycled PET bottles, with each carpet made from 650 bottles.
The comparatively diminutive works of Filipino Lilianna Manahan were inspired by music and its rhythms, and how the artist could feel the essence of her favourite foreign-language songs without being able to understand their lyrics. From that she made her own visual alphabet: Abakada Ganadara, a set of wall-mounted metal and gilded sculptures that allow the user to make their own compositions.
“I give them something to start off with, then give them the opportunity as well to finish it off with their own story, because they’re going to be living with it forever,” says Manahan.
It portrayed a considered sensitivity expressed by many of the artists, including Jakarta-based Alvin Tjitrowirjo, known as alvinT, who believes design should not only be seen but also felt.
Tjitrowirjo’s ottoman, side table and dining chair incorporated traditional rattan weaving produced from an ongoing partnership with a remote village in Kalimantan in Borneo.
It’s these artisanal elements that Annetta thinks make Southeast Asian design unique.
“It’s a part of the world where there is a really long history of making and craft, and I think we’ve tried to talk about it in a way that it doesn’t sound like a charity kind of word,” says Annetta.
“There’s a tendency to talk about craft in a way that, you know, is sort of restricted to minority groups or women, so that it’s something that has very little value. Whereas I think if we try to elevate it, we recognise … that there’s economic value in it, there’s cultural value. There’s a lot of value in identity and the heritage of these crafts, and there are designers really trying to tap into that.”
To that end, most of the pieces on display at Emerge this year were available to buy for the first time. Some, such as Studio Juju’s New Optimistic Works lights, are still prototypes, and Threadapeutics’ Mountain Textile panel is a work in progress, so they weren’t for sale.
“Last year, one of the really important outcomes from the show was the commercial aspect, which we hadn’t anticipated,” says Annetta.
Most notably, pieces of Indonesian product designer Adhi Nugraha’s Cow Dung Project were acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York for its permanent collection.
The Cow Dung Lamps are currently showing in MoMA’s “Life Cycles: The Materials of Contemporary Design” exhibition, until July 2024.
“The idea with Emerge from the very beginning was for it to have some impact in the region,” says Annetta. “And I think the best way for that is to be commercial. These designers are independent, they work for themselves and essentially, they need to be able to make a living, a sustainable living out of what they do. And if we can help with that, great.”
The Emerge exhibition ran alongside Singapore Design Week’s Find Design Fair Asia trade show and the Find Global Summit led by Yoko Choy, China editor of Wallpaper Magazine.
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