Material Matters with Grant Gibson

Delizia Media

In 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.

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Material Matters is produced and published by Delizia Media Ltd.

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151 episodes
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Episodes151

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Feb 10, 2021 · 51 min
Yinka Ilori on colour and narrative.
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 Support the show
Feb 3, 2021 · 35 min
Stuart Haygarth on rubbish.
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 Support the show
Jan 27, 2021 · 48 min
Juli Bolaños-Durman on recycled glass.
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 Support the show
Dec 22, 2020 · 40 min
Steve Barron on hemp (and working with Michael Jackson).
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 Support the show
Dec 9, 2020 · 46 min
Paola Antonelli on curating.
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 Support the show
Dec 2, 2020 · 57 min
Sarah Corbett on stitching and activism.
Sarah Corbett is an award-winning campaigner and author. She began her career in activism at the ripe old age of three and went on to have a successful career working for NGOs including Christian Aid, Oxfam and the UK Government Department for International Development. However, her life took a different turn in 2009, when she created the Craftivist Collective, which champions ‘gentle protesting’ and ‘slow activism’, often using stitching and embroidery as a fundamental part of its process. Since then the organisation has grown in size and has thousands of members, while Sarah has delivered talks and lectures around the globe, launched a slew of successful campaigns and worked with the likes of the V&A, Secret Cinema and Unicef. She has also done a TEDx talk that has been seen by more than a million people. In this episode we talk about: the art and strategy behind gentle protesting; why she became disillusioned with traditional forms of activism; picking up her first cross-stitch kit; the importance of beauty; successfully lobbying the board of M&S; and her problem with Pussyhats. Support the show
Nov 25, 2020 · 37 min
Phoebe Cummings on raw clay.
Phoebe Cummings is an artist who works in clay. Intriguingly, she uses the material in its raw form – so unfired and unglazed – for sculptures that are usually site specific. Inspired by nature (either real or imagined), her pieces are ornate, fragile and, often, decay over time – giving them a wistful dynamism. The writer, Imogen Greenhalgh, has described them rather lyrically as ‘holding bays for her thoughts and ideas’. This is clay as performance art but, perhaps most importantly, in her hands, the material becomes extremely beautiful. Phoebe was the winner of the British Ceramics Biennial Award in 2011, picked up the Woman’s Hour Craft Prize in 2017 for a fountain entitled Triumph of the Immaterial, and was a finalist for the Arts Foundation 25th anniversary awards in 2018. She’s had exhibitions at the Museum of Arts & Design in New York, a solo show at the University of Hawaii and residencies at Camden Arts Centre and the V&A, among other places. In this episode we talk about: the relationship between clay and writing; finding solace in poetry during lockdown; her love of sci-fi and the importance of nature; how permanence is overrated; and why declaring herself bankrupt in her early twenties changed her work for the better. It’s quietly mesmerising stuff. Learn more about Phoebe's work here And sign up to my newsletter here Support the show
Nov 18, 2020 · 49 min
Tomáš Libertíny on beeswax.
Tomáš Libertíny is an artist and designer, who was born in Slovakia but currently lives and works in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He burst into the wider consciousness with his Honeycomb Vase during Milan’s Design Week in 2007. For the extraordinary piece, Libertíny constructed vase-shaped beehive scaffolds and, essentially, let nature take its course, in a process he dubbed ‘slow prototyping’. The beeswax work took one week, and approximately 40,000 bees, to create. It is now in MoMA’s permanent collection in New York. Since then, the designer has worked with a range of other materials, including paper, which he turned on a lathe, ink from Bic biros, and hand-welded layers of stainless steel, as well as refining the Made by Bees series. He has had major solo exhibitions in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Brussels, while his pieces are in the permanent collections of the Cincinnati Art Museum, Corning Museum of Glass and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, to name just a handful. In this episode we discuss: becoming a chat show host over lockdown; his love of literature; the importance of copying; and how exactly art is like a cat (while design is much more like a dog). But mostly we talk about his relationship with bees – why he came to work with them in the first place, and how they are about to collaborate on architectural-scale projects. Find out more about Tomáš here And sign up to my newsletter here Support the show
Nov 11, 2020 · 50 min
Peter Marigold on bio-plastic and mending (with a bit of wood thrown in too).
Peter Marigold is a London-based product designer who originally studied sculpture at Central St Martins before changing tack and enrolling at the Royal College of Art in 2004. Since then he has created gallery pieces for the likes of Libby Sellers and, more recently, Sarah Myerscough, had furniture and shelving manufactured by SCP and others, as well as creating a porcelain collection for Meissen. Best known for his use of wood, in 2015 he launched a new product FORMcard, essentially a small piece of bio-plastic which can be heated and then moulded, allowing users to mend their own products. His work has been exhibited at New York’s MoMA, Design Miami, Design Museum Holon, the V&A, and the Design Museum in London. He has also created commissions for the likes of Paul Smith, Bloomberg and The Museum of Childhood. And if that wasn’t enough, he teaches design at London Metropolitan University. In this episode we talk about: his issues with passive consumption and sustainability; his collecting habit; why he has an odd relationship with wood; his problem with art; and the joy of keeping a pet giant snail. Perhaps most importantly, we discuss FORMcard, and how it can be used to ‘make, fix and modify the world around us’. Learn more about Peter here Sign up for my newsletter here Support the show
Oct 14, 2020 · 51 min
Polly Morgan on taxidermy.
Polly Morgan is an artist who has been hugely responsible for the recent revival of interest in taxidermy, an art form more readily associated with the Victorians, hunting trophies, and dusty bell jars. The one-time English Literature graduate and bar manager has set about upsetting those traditions, creating dark, but alluring, pieces that often place her creatures in disorientating environments. In her hands, a prone, and obviously lifeless, bird dangles from a string attached to a single red balloon; a white rat can be found filling a champagne glass; and a stag’s belly is filled with tiny bats. As one critic wrote: ‘These animals are not restored to life, but so to speak, resuscitated into their deaths.’ Her latest show, entitled How to Behave at Home, opened at London’s Bomb Factory Art Foundation on 14 October 2020 and features snakes which spill out of cast concrete and polystyrene containers. Perhaps signalling a few direction. In this episode we talk about: how local nail bars played a vital role in her new pieces; dealing with artist’s block and why she fell out of love with her own work; growing up in the Cotswolds and not going to art school; learning the craft of taxidermy; and being her own worst critic. Learn more about Polly at: pollymorgan.co.uk And learn more about me at: grantondesign.com Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/materialmatters) Support the show
Oct 7, 2020 · 54 min
Benchmark's Sean Sutcliffe talks wood and remembers Sir Terence Conran.
Sean Sutcliffe co-founded high-end furniture maker, Benchmark, with the late Sir Terence Conran in the early ’80s, when he was fresh out of Parnham College. Initially, he produced work for The Conran Shop, Heals and Habitat, before helping Terence change the face of the London restaurant scene by creating furniture and fittings for Bibendum and Quaglino’s. Subsequently, Benchmark has gone on to do commissions for the likes of the National Gallery, the Natural History Museum, the Eden Project, Vodafone’s world headquarters, and The Gherkin (or 30 St Mary Axe) to name just a few. Sutcliffe has also collaborated with the likes of Foster + Partners and David Rockwell and has just launched a new chair collection with the up-and-coming designer, Mac Collins. Most recently, the company made all the pieces for the Connected project – organised by the American Hardwood Export Council and on show at the Design Museum until 14 October 2020 – which featured furniture made from designers such as, Thomas Heatherwick, Jaime Hayon, Maria Bruun and Ini Archibong, among others. Starting with a team of three, the firm now employs 70 people. In other words, Sean has built a hugely successful business around skill, craft and, of course, wood. In this episode we talk about: his relationship with Sir Terence; how his love of timber began; studying at the legendary Parnham College under John Makepeace; finding the heart of a craftsman; the future of work; and the importance of apprenticeships. It’s searingly honest and really quite emotional. Learn more about Benchmark at: benchmarkfurniture.com And learn more about me at: grantondesign.com Support the show
Sep 30, 2020 · 55 min
Natsai Audrey Chieza on bacteria.
Natsai Audrey Chieza is a designer who has built an extraordinary career by working with bacteria. She grew up in Zimbabwe, before moving to the UK at the age of 17 and training as an architect at Edinburgh University. Subsequently though, she changed tack and completed her MA on the Material Futures course at London’s Central Saint Martins. Now through her experimental studio, Faber Futures, she operates between biology, design and our wider society, working, for instance, with microorganisms to find new, ecologically-sound, processes for dying our clothes. As one magazine put it: ‘For Chieza, designing with biology presents unique opportunities to address significant ecological challenges, squaring the circle of sustainable production and finite resources.’ Her work has been exhibited in places such as the V&A, the London Design Museum, and the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. She also has a wildly successful TED talk under her belt. More recently she has set up a multi-media storytelling platform with Ginkgo Bioworks, entitled Ferment TV, looking at the future of synthetic biology, Covid 19, Black Lives Matter and an array of other issues. In this episode we discuss: growing up in Zimbabwe; racism in the design world; changing the way we consume; learning to work with bacteria; and why our future is biological. It’s kind of eclectic but hugely important. Discover more about Natsai here. And you can find out more about me and sign up to my newsletter here. Support the show
Sep 23, 2020 · 1 hr
Julia Lohmann on kelp (or seaweed).
Julia Lohmann is a German-born designer who first came to prominence after graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2004 with a chandelier fashioned from 50 preserved sheep stomachs. She followed that up with a stool made by casting the inside of a dead calf and, perhaps most famously, with her Cow Bench – essentially a sculpture of a cow’s body covered, anatomically correctly, with an entire hide. Both beautiful and a bit disturbing, the pieces were created as provocations, to make us consider the provenance of the stuff we wear and sit on everyday. However, more recently, she has become known for her research into kelp. In 2013, Julia set up the Department of Seaweed during a six-month residency at London’s V&A, which allowed her to start exploring the potential of this extraordinary material and she has been working with it ever since. In this episode we discuss: how she came across kelp in the first instance; inventing her own form of craft; the future role of museums; the importance of dissonance in her work; doing a guerrilla exhibition at Tate Modern with maggots; and falling out (briefly) with one of the greats of contemporary design. Julia is currently professor of contemporary design at Aalto University in Finland, and directs her eponymous design practice from Helsinki, so this interview was conducted over the internet. You can find out more about Julia’s work at: julialohmann.co.uk And for more about me go to: grantondesign.com Support the show
Sep 15, 2020 · 44 min
Esna Su on the refugee crisis and creating contemporary art from traditional Turkish craft.
Esna Su is an artist and jewellery designer, who was brought up in Turkey, near the Syrian border, before arriving in London in 2003. Since graduating from Central Saint Martins in 2015, she has developed a reputation for her extraordinary pieces that attempt to highlight the plight of refugees. Her wearable sculptures curve and bulge around the body, using traditional Turkish techniques of hasir, twining, needlework and crochet, as well as materials such as leather, cotton and paper rush. In her collection entitled The Burden I, for example, knitted vegetable tanned leather cord is moulded around some of her most cherished objects, leaving hollow shapes that in the artist’s words ‘contain memories and the loss of the past’. It is stunning, deeply moving work that combines craft with protest and a deep-seated sense of empathy. As one writer put it: ‘Su actively seeks out both the horror and the beauty in her own cultural history as a way of unpicking contemporary issues surrounding cultural identities.’ In this episode, we talk about growing up in Turkey and the culture shock of coming to London; how the Syrian war has changed her home city of Antioch; why her mother didn’t want her to weave; the importance of memory in her pieces; and how making helped her recover from the death of her brother. It’s a delicate, and often, really quite touching interview. To find out more about Esna and her work: www.esnasu.co.uk Support the show
Sep 8, 2020 · 57 min
Dominic Wilcox on inventing.
Dominic Wilcox is a London-based designer, artist and inventor. I first came across his work in 2002 when he created The War Bowl, in which he melted down plastic toy soldiers from a particular battle and turned them into, well, a bowl. Since then he has gone onto to create a singular space in the design world, with witty creations and drawings that are a combination of David Shrigley and Heath Robinson, with a dash of Vic and Bob thrown in to boot. In Wilcox’s hands your shoes can tell you where to go, a crane comes out of a hat on top of your head and serves you breakfast, while your car is made of stained glass. Oh, and there are art exhibitions designed specifically for dogs. But this isn’t whimsy. There is logic behind everything he does and a desire to turn the normal things around us into something interesting and surprising. To make life just a little bit better. More recently, he has been turning his attention to schools, through the Little Inventors Project, which encourages children to use their creativity and come up with new ideas of their own. And this year he has published two books, Little Inventors go Green and Little Inventors in Space. In this episode he discusses the importance of creativity; how he comes up with his ideas; presenting at the United Nations; his fear of failure; and how he could have been an athletics champion. To find out more about Dominic's work: dominicwilcox.com Support the show
Jul 16, 2020 · 1 hr 2 min
Alexis Peskine on nails.
The final episode of this special ‘lockdown’ series of Material Matters features Alexis Peskine. I came across the Paris-based artist’s work at last year’s 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair at London’s Somerset House and described it in a subsequent Instagram post as ‘breathtaking’. Rather than using canvas, Peskine takes an earth and coffee-stained timber base. And instead of paint, he hammers nails at different heights, which are often tipped with gold leaf to form the features of a face. The resulting portraits of black subjects – or Power Figures – are large scale and immensely detailed while being both beautiful and haunting at the same time. They also possess a wonderful sense of topography. The work talks about race, migration, deportation, with recent pieces paying tribute to migrants undertaking dangerous boat journeys from North Africa to Europe. It is utterly extraordinary. We talk about what the nails represent and his intricate process; his eclectic family background; why his talent for basketball took him to the US; and how black American culture effected his life. Perhaps most importantly we discuss the black experience and the blight of racism. ‘You make art about what touches you,’ he explains. ‘There are so many injustices to correct. It’s going to be a life struggle.’ You can find out more about Alexis’ work here: www.octobergallery.co.uk Support the show
Jun 24, 2020 · 53 min
Lin Cheung on stone and the importance of jewellery.
In the fifth ‘lockdown special’ of Material Matters, I speak to the brilliant Lin Cheung. Lin is one of the world’s most intriguing jewellery designers, her output vacillating between installation pieces, work that contains political and social commentary, as well as high profile commissions, including the medals for the 2012 Paralympic Games in London. She picked up an Arts Foundation Award in 2001 and a Jerwood Contemporary Makers Award in 2008. In 2017 she was shortlisted for the Woman’s Hour Craft Prize, while in 2018 she won the prestigious Francoise van den Bosch Award. She is also a teacher on the jewellery course at Central Saint Martins. As one critic said: ‘Lin’s work is a commentary on the human condition, a conveyer of the maker’s thoughts and feelings, a constant exploration into the meanings of jewellery.’ Over the years she has worked in a range of materials but, at least to begin with, we chat about her most recent collections, which have been made from stone. During our interview Lin also touches on why jewellery matters and how it has the ability to comment on our hopes, beliefs and dreams; the background to her series of stone badges, entitled Delayed Reactions; the joy she finds in carving; and the relationship between ideas and materials. It’s delicate and rather lyrical stuff. You can find out more about Lin’s work here: www.lincheung.co.uk Support the show
Jun 2, 2020 · 1 hr 5 min
Fernando Laposse on corn, colour and (Mexican) culture.
The fourth ‘lockdown special’ episode of Material Matters features the excellent Fernando Laposse. The up-and-coming designer has made his name in recent years with his colourfully beautiful veneer, Totomoxtle, which is made from the husks of Mexican corn grown in the tiny village of Tonahuixtla. The product was included in last year’s exhibition Food: Bigger than the Plate at the Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as being shortlisted for the London Design Museum’s Beazley Designs of the Year in 2018. In this episode the Paris-born but Mexican-bred designer talks about the background of this deeply personal project, which involves macro-economics (and Mexico’s controversial free trade agreement with the US and Canada); agricultural heritage; global food culture; old family friends and childhood summer holidays; as well as craft and, of course, corn. Importantly it illustrates how design thinking can genuinely make a difference to an entire community, showing that traditional techniques and ways of living can still thrive in the globalised economy. As Fernando says his work ‘is preoccupied with sustainability, the loss of biodiversity, community disenfranchisement and the politics of food’. It's fascinating stuff. You can find out more about Fernando and his work here: www.fernandolaposse.com Support the show
May 12, 2020 · 50 min
Freddie Robins on knitting.
The third 'lockdown special' of Material Matters features the radical knitter Freddie Robins. The common perception of knitting is that it’s a gentle, mindful activity. A thing you can do quietly in front of the television to relax after a hard day. Well Robins’ work is the antithesis of all that. It’s frequently dark, and always provocative. Her subject matter encompasses death, loss, religion, depression and challenges the perceived hierarchy of the art and craft worlds. It is work meant for the gallery rather than to be worn at home and comes with titles such as ‘Bad Mother’ and ‘I’m so Bloody Sad’. Kaffe Fassett she ain’t. In this episode we discuss: the pivotal role her Godmother played in her childhood fascination with textiles; her loathing of conformity and the ‘danger of being ridden over by mediocrity’; her spell working in the fashion world; exploring the dark side through her work; having her pieces vandalised; and why knitting shouldn’t always be good for you. Not only that but we also chat about her appearance on Grand Designs with Kevin McCloud. So something for everybody I think. You can find out more about Freddie’s here: freddierobins.com NB: Like all our lockdown episodes this has been recorded over the internet rather than in our guest’s studio. As a result the sound quality isn’t quite where we’d like it to be all the time. Support the show
Apr 22, 2020 · 51 min
SCP's Sheridan Coakley on manufacturing, retailing and pioneering British design.
The second ‘lockdown special’ episode of Material Matters features the excellent Sheridan Coakley. The entrepreneur cut his teeth as a modern furniture dealer before founding the iconic SCP – or Sheridan Coakley Products – in London’s Shoreditch during the mid-eighties. The manufacturer and retailer burst onto the nascent British design scene with pieces by Jasper Morrison and Matthew Hilton. In 1991 it produced the latter’s Balzac armchair, which has gone on to become a bona fide classic. Over the years the roll call of designers Sheridan has worked with includes: Konstantin Grcic, James Irvine, Michael Marriott, Donna Wilson, Rachel Whiteread and Reiko Kaneko to name just a handful. He has legitimate claims to be considered one of the most influential figures in British design over the past 35 years. In this episode we talk about his early days; swapping bubblegum cards with artist Eduardo Paolozzi; meeting Jasper Morrison for the first time (in quite surprising circumstances); setting up business in unfashionable east London; copying classics; the state of British design; and the future of retail. You can find out more about SCP here: scp.co.uk (Please note this is a special episode made in really quite tricky circumstances, so the sound quality isn’t quite as good as normal.) Support the show