SALONE DEL MOBILE 2018
Mingling tradition and Pop
Under the name “La Vereda,” Marni has launched a furniture and lifestyle edition that references both nature and culture and is characterized equally by a poetic and a raw quality. The backdrop for the exhibition was inspired by a Colombian vereda. Veredas are urban meeting points that develop around a couple of streets or a cluster of houses. Local residents meet here daily to swap ideas and pass on information from one generation to another and there is a strong sense of community. In this context the house plays with the community idea in its simplest interpretation as a counterpoint to the fast-moving and transient social media reality. This image of a vibrant and dynamic meeting place forms the highly colorful, folklorist setting for the furniture and home accessories that successfully combine old and new techniques and materials – produced in collaboration with Colombian artisans and workshops.
The resulting products not only testify to complexity and inventiveness, but also simplicity – chairs that evoke innocent and dreamy birds as well as peacock tails, geometrically woven, organic PVC for the seats and backrests of stools or armchairs, or chickens fashioned from papier-mâché and decorated with tiny glass beads made by a group of women in Villanueava. In Ibagué, the capital of Tolima, wicker basket weaving has been practiced for centuries. For Marni, the artisans used colored plastic threads in the context of the natural material for the first time. In the Santander region agave forms the basis of a robust, organic textile that Marni uses to make large shopping bags block-printed in bright colors. This mingling of tradition and Pop is a central theme in the installation. As always, Marni donates the money from the sale of the exhibits to a good cause: this time to the Italian project “La casa sull’ albero,” which supports families obliged for existential reasons to give up their children for adoption or to foster families.
