Industrial designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby of London-based studio, Barber Osgerby, will bring their work to the remote Aeolian Island of Filicudi this summer for an exhibition that charts the duo’s restless urge to push materials and fabrication processes to their limits. Open from 21 June to 23 July 2023, From Island to Island celebrates the role of the handmade in their work, which they often describe as ‘engineered craft’: an alliance of the uncompromisingly industrial and the uncompromisingly artisanal.

Made by both hand and machine in glass, wood, wool and metal, the limited-edition objects at Studio Casoli – a small gallery beside the beach in the ancient fishing village of Pecorini Mare – will feel in radical opposition to the wild, rugged landscape and simplicity of Filicudi. But they will also be firmly at home on the island, which has long been a summer refuge for designers and artists, including Ettore Sottsass, Maurizio Cattelan, Massimiliano Fuksas and Edward Barber himself.

The exhibition’s title reflects this paradox: Britain and Filicudi are oceans apart but there’s a spirit of subversion that connects Barber Osgerby with the creatives that have made this volcanic outcrop a base. And nautical links abound in the works, such as the hand-blown glass Port Vase, made for Venini in 2016, which recalls buoys and fenders.

Since its inception in 1996, Barber Osgerby’s design approach has been characterised by an exploratory attitude towards materiality, colour and process. This has resulted in an extraordinarily wide body of work, ranging from furniture for Vitra, to the London 2012 Olympic torch and a kinetic, mirrored installation for the V&A. For Studio Casoli, founded by Milanese gallerist Sergio Casoli, they have selected pieces that show the breadth of materials and processes they work with when freed from the constraints of volume production. These objects also reflect their close working relationship with craftspeople.

From Island to Island includes their first collaboration with a weaver: Pisa-based Laura de Cesare, who will create a tapestry, comprising a series of concentric circles representing the sun, in a nod to the exhibition’s opening on the summer solstice. Despite their simple geometry, weaving in circles stretches the skill of the maker to extremes – a recurring hallmark of Barber Osgerby’s work.

Among other new and little-seen pieces will be tables from their Largo collection for Marsotto Edizioni, launched at the 2023 Milan Design Week. A special edition will be made in lava stone from Mount Etna, visible across the sea from Studio Casoli. Meanwhile, the Iris table, designed in 2008 for Established & Sons, represents a marriage between man and machine. It was constructed from a single geometric component, machined from solid aluminium, individually hand-dyed in an anodizing tank and repeated to form a perfectly tessellated ring. The result is a lyrical, seamless object, recalling the colour striations of the human eye.

From Island to Island is the first contemporary design exhibition at Studio Casoli.

Says Edward Barber: ‘The exhibition demonstrates our obsession with how things are made. It spans almost every type of construction we’ve worked with, from glassblowing and weaving to machining metal.’

Says Jay Osgerby: ‘Seeing makers at work has been fundamental to our design education. The more you learn how they operate, and the more they understand how you work, the better each piece you produce is going to be. It’s a dialogue.’

Says Sergio Casoli: ‘From the great British island to small Filicudi, the works of Barber Osgerby are independently placed in space. Great practicality is combined with art – each piece is “Readymade” and we celebrate its uniqueness.’

Barber Osgerby
Designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby founded their London studio in 1996. Their diverse body of work spans industrial design, furniture, lighting and site-specific installations as well as gallery and public commissions such as the London 2012 Olympic Torch and projects for the Royal Mint. They are currently working with leading global manufacturers including Vitra, Knoll, B&B Italia, Flos, Venini and Hermès. Their work is held in permanent museum collections around the world including the V&A and the Design Museum in London, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Art Institute of Chicago. Their latest monograph ‘Barber Osgerby, Projects’ was published by Phaidon in 2017.
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