Nathalie Worp
About Marta Sif
"I am Marta Sif, I am a product designer and I am currently designing a furniture from the plastic waste yarn. I graduated form Design Academy Eindhoven earlier this year with a project called “Fish on dry land”. In this project I focused on working with migration in villages in Iceland where I am from. I made four pieces of furniture that are inspired by this village main occupation fishing and designed them so they could be produced locally. I wanted to show them and everybody else that it’s very much possible to produce in the villages and it doesn’t alls have to happen in the big cities. During my graduation show on Dutch Design Week I met Gaspard from WOOF & WOW and he told me about this project with the plastic waste yarn that they had been working on. This seemed like the perfect match, that I would join them and design a product with the team of WOOF & WOW.
I am very glad to be a part of this project and I am curious to see where it will lead me. It’s an important project for me because I like being a part of something bigger then just my objects. I believe design should reach out to social problems in the world where the creative thinking come in good use. I would say that I am somewhere in-between being a designer and a craftsman so I find this project very fascinating. Now my goal is to use the story and the knowledge of the area combined with the recycle material to create a designed furniture. By doing this we are recycling waste, giving the people there jobs and creating something new. It’s just as beautiful as it sounds.
In the beginning I research a lot through photos, making collages for different things like colour, weaving methods, possible products, detailing etc. from there on I started to make experiments with the material, all kinds of little try out and research. I started to get more feeling for the material and what it has to offer. The material is very strong and it has an interesting feeling and texture. I wanted to use the story and the background of the material in the design and I think that one of the biggest iconic Peru things are weaven woollen textiles. I tried combining the wool with the plastic and I felt that that worked very well together creating a different material on it’s own. I found a weaving method that I think works the best, it’s one of the most simplest ways to weave but that is also a good thing. The simpler the better. I wanted to create a way for the women to weave this material in a simple efficient way that could also be the simplest way for me to use in a furniture. At this point I see it as weaving strips that they will make from the plastic combined with the traditional wool and then there will be a metal frame where I can apply the strips too to make a chair or a stool. This week I will be working on shaping the stool and trying out the connection method that I came up with, now with the real material."
In the designing process, we the Plastic Waste Lima team will be the ears and eyes for Marta in Peru! On the basis of her questions about design possibilities we will go through the design process step-by-step! We will keep Marta updated and vice versa!
Check her website and follow the design process on facebook!
http://www.martasif.com/
https://www.facebook.com/woofandwow/?ref=ts&fref=ts
