Empty Vessels were presented during The 2018 London Design Festival in a group show of a diverse range of designers creating work celebrating the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” novel, responding to the themes of the narrative.
Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” tells the story of Dr. Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a grotesque, sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley deals with the detrimental effects of Victor’s obsession with, and over dependence on science and technology. Likewise, in today’s world there has been an invasion of technology into modern life that has created a new design language and landscape of digitally fabricated objects.
This project is an attempt to create a counterpoint to such techniques by re-appropriating older manufacturing processes from mould making and lost wax metal casting. Rather than opting for a digital additive process, the object is created by hand, working outwards from the negative space.
Individual forms are sculpted in wax. These forms are suspended within a box mould and filled with resin. As the resin catalyses, the exothermic reaction produced by the curing resin melts the the wax out leaving a complex cavity that acts at a reservoir for the vase.
Dr.Frankenstein attempted to surge beyond accepted human limits with his monster and that is what I have explored in producing these pieces.
https://www.horrorshow.info/about
2015
Materials: Stainless Steel.
Mono 2.0 is a development of Mono 1.0 and is part of an on going series of design manufacture enquiries bringing together previously unrelated design ideas and manufacturing processes in order to present new ways of making objects.
By appropriating industrial CNC wire bending techniques normally used in spring manufacturing, a single line of steel wire is manipulated in such a way as to capture the necessary features and characteristics of a traditional pair of glasses.
This single process design dispenses with the multiple components of standard eyewear (such as arms, frontals, hinges and screws), to create a streamlined, robust and easily recyclable product perfectly suited for bespoke fitting.
Mono was presented as part of Modern Design review magazine's, "Ready, Made, Go!" Show at the Ace Hotel in Shoreditch London for The London Design Festival, 2015. Mono is currently available to purchase at the Ace in Shoreditch or on this Website.
2015
Materials: Polyester, Elastic, Steel
The project began after an investigation in to the ways that fabrics could be used more structurally rather than decoratively in furniture design. Through researching we felt that traditionally the majority of furniture has a very instructive sense of how a person should interact with it.
Well Hung proposes a fun, interactive alternative, at first glance appearing to be a wall hanging – pulling the piece away from the wall, the engineered woven structures offer selected areas that morph and stretch in controlled ways supporting an individual’s shape and form, exploring the idea of a piece of furniture being formed by its user rather than the furniture shaping the user’s body. The length and size of the piece is infinite offering exciting possibilities for all types and sizes of interiors. Well hung is part tapestry, part wall hanging, part chair, part room divider - ultimately providing the user with a dynamic piece of furniture that not only adapts to the needs of their space but the shape of their body as well.
This project was made is collabration with Textile Designer & Weaver Jacqueline Lefferts
2014
Materials : Cellulose acetate, acrylic tube, led strip lights.
The Acetate Light project came about after a factory visit for the Mono eyewear collection.
The lamp is constructed entirely of unusable cellulose acetate dating from the 1950’s and 60’s used in the manufacture of eyewear frames. The acetate was sourced from ‘Algha’ est 1898, England’s oldest eyewear manufacturer who are based in East London.
Acetate is comprised of a combination of natural cotton fibers and acetyl acids, which over long periods of time can become unsuitable for the fine machining required for eyewear manufacture. Algha has had to dispose of a large majority of the orginial and vintage acetates that they were unable to work with due to its age or warped condition (see stacked warped sheets on shelves) - as such we focussed strictly on these pieces that were no longer appropriate for conventional uses.
Other than for eyewear, acetate has been used for accessories and small objects such as stationary and hair combs however the material was no longer in a condition suitable for these more traditional objects so we chose to take advantage of the acetates alternative properties.
Acetate has a natural level of transparency due to the manufacturing processes used to ensure the pattern's design is physically suspended within the material rather than on the surface. This makes it ideal for ‘diffusing light’ giving these initially just decorative features a new life and purpose. Laminating the material under pressure made it possible to mitigate the warping of the aged acetate and for us to be able to machine a uniform shape for the light shade .
This project was made in collaboration with Stine Keinicke.
2013
Materials: Aluminium
Metal spinning is the process of forming a sheet around a mandrel whilst both the mandrel and material are spinning on a lathe. By applying even pressure to the metal at a fixed point a shell of the mandrel is created as it rotates. Typically metal spinning is used to create multiple repeat components ranging from light fixtures to tableware.
I was keen to use this rather standardised technique to create something very far removed from the traditional and somewhat stereotypical applications to celebrate the magic of such a simple process.
The metal spun hat is designed in such a way the it stays in place without assistance despite its size. As the simple profile is rotated to make the form, a narrow hollow tube is created. The hair, once fixed at the top of the opening of the tube can be styled in such a way to hold the lightweight aluminium in place.
2013
Materials : Arcylic , polycarbonate (lenses)
Mono eyewear was the winner of the inaugural 100% optical/Royal College of Art eyewear design competition. The brief was to design a new eyewear concept.
Traditionally glasses frames are composed of multiple components. Over time many of these individual components. - screws, hinges, springs etc deteriorate and fail through general use. Mono was an investigation in construction methods to see if it was possible to do away with these multiple components and construct a frame and temples from one continuous component whilst maintaining the fundamental characteristics of a pair of glasses.
By creating a spring like construction for the arms the frames were still able to bend at the temples but also flattened out to house the lenses on the front of the frames.
2011
Materials : Cotton, Cashmere wool, Merino wool, Wool Felt, Nylon Elastic, Beech, Brass
Ba Graduate collection. Winner of the Hammerson Award for Innovation at Graduate Fashion week.
The starting point for this collection came from an investigation into the interpretation of line in form, and how this has a direct effect on the fitting and construction of garments.
Focussing on how fabric is fitted to the body and exploring this concept of giving 2-dimensional line, 3-dimensional form allowed me to present new methods of fabric manipulation and garment construction either with using projection mapped patterns to capture the entitrly of the form. Treating fabric as if it it were a solid and carving form from it. Or creating solid structure to completely manipulate the textiles in to non sewn forms.
© Parsha Gerayesh 2017
