HABITUS is an experimental project by Foscarini created with artist and designer Andrea Anastasio, along with Arun Jothi and Natalie Frost of Amal, who specialize in embroidery made by hand for the world of haute couture. The trio played with absolute creative freedom through the lens of art and design, allowing the world of lighting to be investigated without the typical limits imposed by production.
“For a company, it is a true privilege to be able to take the time to reflect, to weave connections, and attempt creative incursions into other worlds. It is also a natural choice; for us: getting out of our comfort zone is a part of who we are,” says Carlo Urbinati, president of Foscarini. “Habitus is therefore a gift we make to ourselves but also a necessity, the outcome of our need to listen and to share visions with people who belong to other worlds, to create new imaginaries of light, and to explore different meanings to assign to what we do.”
HABITUS is about the research and possibilities that lie between the idea and the product. Here, embroidery is explored as a venerated ancient art that’s been given a contemporary update by Amal. Foscarini doesn’t consider the project’s 11 pieces as lamps, rather they’re artistic light objects that bring together refined skills combining different eras of craftsmanship.
Classic materials, such as glass beads, as well as paillettes, plexiglass, and strips of laser-cut PET, were used with the goal of observing the reactions of the light displays when it hits these unpredictable textures. The resulting pieces that comprise HABITUS include semi-finished metal parts with multicolored beads, curtains made using thousands of strung glass beads, and installations with curls of heat-processed PET. What they all have in common is the light and a slightly digital visual effect.
“HABITUS draws the gaze and the attention to these manual skills whose origins are lost in time,” explains Anastasio. “The modular character of the architecture underpinning embroidery and the reiteration of the gesture that produces it form the basis of this project, formulated to dress the light and to summon it to underscore the richness of the heritage of gestures layered in time that set the tone of the artifacts that are the design’s inspiration.”
To learn more about HABITUS, visit foscarini.com.
