During Design Week, Angela Ardisson presents Nut, her latest lighting collection and we at thesignspeaking went to her studio atelier in the Ticinese neighborhood of Milan so that we could tell you all about it. We’ve known about your passion for light for years now and, once again, you’re filling us in on your new interpretation on the subject of lighting… Tell us about your project. It all started last fall. The interior designer Michaela Curetti asked me to create a lamp for a house in the mountains with great external views. For these clients I made a sculpture in metal fabric that, because of its volume, was able to shed sufficient light over the large dining room table while at the same time, it did not create a shadow in the room. A compromise between volumes, materials and light source. For lighting I used LED spheres, which at last have happily replaced incandescent bulbs (ed. tungsten bulbs have always represented the ‘beating heart’ of her sculptures, fascinating for their shape and their visible filaments…). It’s exactly in this context that I thought of Nut. My intention was to find a transparent solution able to silhouette the bulb and impede the bright glow that would bother your eyes.Nut is the wrapper that envelops the light and protects our gaze from its reflection. And this is only the most ‘piercing’ aspect of Angela Ardisson’s project. Tell us how your collection developed. The project was inspired by the walnut, both in terms of lighting design and form. There is a content and a container, an ellipse that embraces a circumference. Feminine sinuousness and formal minimalism, since there is only a single material, brass, as well as a single shape. The collection includes pendant fixtures as well as floor, table and wall mounted models. On display there will also be some maxi light sculptures in bronze and some pieces from the EARTHLANDS collection that was presented last year.The exhibition partner is Altai with some carpetsfrom the early ‘900s produced by nomads – who lived on the vast highlands of eastern-central Anatolia – to meet their daily needs. Used as mats on the ground or as wall insulation inside their tents, they were woven with natural colors of goat wool. “The Turkic term Kara means black, like the wool that was used, and thanks to the impressive durability of the material the carpets were also used for drying apricots, which provided the only source of vitamins during the harsh winters. Small sections of embroidery or different colored yarns are totemic protective signs,” explains Raffaele Carrieri. It was precisely this “usefulness” that, through the millennia, helped preserve intact the original characteristics of essential design and the refinement of this rudimentary yarn. Traits which are also found in the poetics of Angela Ardisson. photo credits: ©Thomas Pagani 4-9 april, 10am – 7pm cocktail on 7 from 7pm Wena’s live show viale San Michele del Carso 10 Milan 1
