Natalia Triantafylli

Natalia Triantafylli is a Greek designer and maker based in London. Her practice - rooted far away from problem-solving – explores the ways we relate or fail to relate with material culture both as makers and as owners. Reflecting on her background in product design and ceramics her work is process-based and object-oriented; a clash between craft and design research.

awards / exhibitions / publications

Cream Athens NOT APPLICABLE / exhibitor (2021)

RCA Dissertation: On collecting and recollecting / awarded with distinction (2020)

Burberry Design Scholarship (2019)

EKSIG 2019: Experiential knowledge and collaboration – Esthonian Academy of Arts / "Poke it with a stick: using autoethnography in research through design" / published research (2019)

LDF - SEEK, curated by Form & Seek London, UK / exhibitor (2018)

55th Greek National Exhibition of Ceramic Arts - Athens, GR / Honorable Mention - (2017)

EKSIG 2017 Alive. Active. Adaptive, Rotterdam, NL / speaker (2017)

MEng (Integrated masters) at the Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering, University of the Aegean (2016)

Through 'Chimeras of a High Tide' I counterbalance the designer’s tendency to speculate on better futures with the inherent sensitivity of a craftsperson towards materiality and its heritage.

I would always get attached to ‘things’ thus an animistic perspective is my natural response to the material world. My approach as a designer very much embodies that attitude. I make objects as tangible propositions that help in making sense of the world.

Lately, while this world is experiencing an unprecedented crisis, I realized that through my creations I seek to create getaways to imaginary ones while a need of ‘breaking out’ is more prescient than ever. Schemas such as luxury, fetish and wonder are explored for these exact transportitive qualities; to unlock dreams and provide a sense of being out-of-place. Although these constructions meant to confuse the everyday I wish to point out the rarity of the mundane concluding that there is no need for a new reality but rather for a fresh pair of eyes. Through processes of re-contextualisation and material re-appropriation I wish to spark a dialogue between forgotten rituals, curiosities, and contemporary commodities.

'Chimeras of a High Tide' is a collection of artifacts combining hand build stoneware, slip casted Parian porcelain and 3d printed elements. The objects are made by details of scanned Victorian street furniture around the city of London merged with scans of my own creations. Reflecting on my heritage as a Greek person as well as my experience as a designer/maker, I am intrigued by the paradox of the Victoriana, where the latest industrial means of production are expressed through revivalism.

Medium:

Parian porcelain, 3D printed PLA

3d printing 3D Scan Cultural Identity Digital vs Physical Future archeology Heritage History London Memory photography Porcelain victorian

The process is a peculiar form of casting and recasting; blurring the boundaries between the original and the reproduction. I worked with digital mediums intuitively, almost in a hands on way while I unapologetically clashed porcelain’s pure elegance with a controversial material such as plastic, pointing out the emergency to invent new ways of being ‘true to material’.

Medium:

parian porcelain, 3D printed PLA

3D printing 3D Scan Ceramic Sculpture Cultural Identity Digital Digital Craft Digital vs Physical Future archeology Heritage London Memory Mythology

The accessibility of photogrammetry, where with only my phone I can replicate things that belong to the urban sphere, gave me a sense of power within the city; I transformed it into my pallet. Through this hybrid process of recasting I clashed ancient symbols, bypassed ideas of grandeur and gestural hand-shaped forms to create things that I can hold close and use with my own terms.

3d printing 3d scan Digital imagery Digital Material Digital vs Physical Future archeology Heritage Innovation London Memory Fragment Urban Space