[caption id="attachment_8371" align="alignnone" width="560" caption="FENDI and Aranda Lasch present Modern Primitives"][/caption]
Italian fashion house FENDI and American architect team Aranda/Lasch are collaborating on a project that will be featured at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition, which is part of the Venice Biennale, and later in December at Design Miami.
FENDI and Aranda/Lasch’s main work, Modern Primitives, is a grand installation made of small and large interconnecting foam pieces covered with FENDI materials, a process overseen by Silvia Venturini Fendi. Aside from its impressive combination of art and construction techniques, Modern Primitives also takes on the unique element of interaction. All viewers are encouraged to experience the work directly by touching it, sitting on it, leaning on it, etc. Doing so makes them part of the installation, blurring the line between art and audience.
But you can’t have FENDI without handbags, hence the other part of the collaboration: an Aranda/Lasch approach to FENDI’s Peekaboo handbag, which involves using the thin Japanese fabric Washi as a lining. To make this work interactive, craftsmen will actually be constructing the bag right in front of viewers.
Since the Architecture Biennale runs from late August to November and Design Miami begins in December, such a trans-Atlantic journey may prove difficult for the ambitious project the two groups have planned, but no one’s complaining. In fact, they assert that it adds a beautiful universality to Modern Primitives.
