Cool Hunting

Just this past spring, the presence of the young Dutch designer Pieke Bergmans could be felt throughout Milan during the Salone del Mobile. Her Design Virus series turned up at Dilmos Gallery, the exhibition "A Touch of Green" by Droog, and her own exhibition space in the Zona Tortona.

New to her studies in parasitic design was a collection of lamps produced in collaboration with Royal Leerdam Crystal, with LED technology provided by Solid Lighting Design. The fixtures, simply named Light Bulbs, continue the visual language of amorphous blown glass developed in her earlier projects, while attaining a level of elegance heretofore not seen in the Design Virus work.

This coming September, Pieke will be the focus of a solo exhibition entitled "Uniques and Unlimited" at Toolsgalerie in Paris. The name is appropriate, considering one of her main goals as a designer is to introduce individuality into mass production. She writes: ""No two people are the same, and neither are two of the hairs that grow on your head. I wish our products were a bit more like this as well. The next step in mass production could be controlled imperfect production, for interesting, personal objects." Included in the exhibit will be the collection Unlimited Edition, a 2007 project created in partnership with Madieke Fleuren at the European Ceramic Work Center. Similar to the slumped glass of her Crystal Virus collection, Unlimited Edition plays with randomness by forcing clay through a variety of extrusion templates. The soft clay tubes are cut at random intervals and left to dry on a rack, their final forms being dictated by a host of variables, the most noticeable of which is the awkward position each vessel has relaxed into.