It’s with something of a bittersweet air that we feature Swine Studio‘s new collection – sweet because we can conclusively prove that not all up-and-coming artists are living close to starvation in abject misery, and a tiny bit bitter because no one ever sends us to São Paulo for four months to be creative.
Heineken did just that and the result is São Paulo Collection, the work of Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves as part of their Super Wide Interdisciplinary New Exploration collaboration. Murakami is an architecture graduate, Groves a fine art graduate, both Design Products alumni from the Royal College of Art (probably why they get sent to South America to be creative and we don’t). Brazilian modernism of the 1950s gets a reworking here, infused with influence form the native flora.
Aluminium is a prominent material, as seen in the palm-frond chair paired with a hand-carved wooden cactus. The reheated glass bottles forming the plant’s bulb branches reappear in many interesting LED-lighted forms throughout the collection. Nice work if you can get it.
