On show at the Jil Sander showroom during this year’s Milan Design Week, the nendo’s Invisible Outlines exhibition brings together 16 of the brand’s projects, all exploring the theme that interprets the blurred boundaries, outlines and borders of objects and things.
“We tend to perceive the existence and positioning of objects by subconsciously following ‘outlines’, and by distinguishing the ‘inside and outside’ of these contours” says Oki Sato. “This also means that objects with obscure outlines cannot always be identified as objects, and conversely if outlines are visible, that information which is not visible can be subconsciously supplemented.”
The exhibition takes this fundamental principle into account, and the following ideas were implemented as a theme. The existence of items are blurred by manipulating outlines in various ways, or the viewers can recognize some existence of an item visually in their minds by making invisible outlines visible.
Within the essential and ethereal-lit spaces, the objects on show including the “border table” which presents a fragmented contour of rooms, “trace collection” capturing “traces” of movement, “un-printed material”, a piece that portrays various forms and expressions of paper through outline, “80 sheets of mountains” which features mountain range using outlines with cut and elongated sheet material, “objectextile” a collaboration project with Jil Sander, where contours of 3D objects are retrieved and turned into textile, and “jellyfish vase” a new piece that attempts to reestablish the relationship between vase and water with colour boundaries.
Nendo’s exhibition is on show at the Jil Sander showroom at Via Luca Beltrami 5 until tomorrow April, 8.
all images © Takumi Ota