Be Open think tank

To raise awareness of the amount of plastic waste being generated as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, Italy-born and Reykjavik-based designer Tobia Zambotti has used discarded personal protective equipment (PPE) as the stuffing for a sofa. Aptly named Couch-19, the piece comprises a modular pouf filled with 10,000 disposable masks that was collected by volunteers in the streets of Zambotti's hometown in Italy, and quarantined in sealed plastic bags for a month. The volume of light blue masks stuffed into four units covered in clear PVC resembles the tip of an iceberg as a reference to the fact that this is only a small fraction of the frightening amount of face coverings discarded globally every day. The components can be combined into a number of seating configurations from a regular sofa to a chaise lounge. More furniture made from recycled PPE in our blog

Japanese art student Hama has created an expansive platter of strikingly accurate sushi made entirely of natural stone. Through painstaking shaping, engraving and polishing, the artist captures the look of Japan’s national delicacy. All pieces boast their natural color, meaning that no paints of artificial coloring was used. At a closer inspection, the viewer can find parts of the human body, such as lips, ears and fingertips, riddled throughout the mix of stone nigari pieces. By putting them on the rice, the artist wanted to spark a conversation about waste and existence through food. More lifelike food renditions in our blog

Russian-born and London-based visual artist Helga Stentzel has transformed her drying laundry into whimsical interventions that resemble farm animals. The practice, which the artist terms “household surrealism,” takes cues from her childhood in Siberia, where she spent hours surveying random objects, such as her grandmother’s carpet, for recognizable forms. Her Pegasus the Horse, for example, consists of a sweater and sweatpants with a kitchen cleaning cloth constituting a tail and clothespins added to form the crest.

Concerned by the fact that 50 million tonnes of electronic waste is discarded annually, Central Saint Martins womenswear graduate Alexandra Sipa has used reclaimed electrical wires to weave fabric for her Romanian Camouflage collection. The designer sourced the cables from a London recycling centre and used traditional lacemaking techniques to repurpose them into a comfortable and polished finish. The designer admits that it took her a lot of practice to get the wires to mimic the softness of traditional lace. The collection includes all kinds of garments from a scallop-edged vest, to a bustier with pink velvet straps and two intricate, floor-length dresses, and also incorporates other salvaged materials, with a blouse made from garment factory offcuts and a jacket from beach towels. More fashion collections made from reclaimed materials in our blog

Located in the Parc des Îles, on a site of Europe’s former biggest coal mining factory, Le Voyeur by Rotterdam based design office Atelier Ari is an interactive pavilion that invites visitors to observe the transformed post-industrial landscape in a different way. The six meter tall round pavilion is made of plywood and slanted at the top, with an oval aluminum mirror placed at such an angle that the landscape can only be seen from inside. Lying in the pavilion’s trampoline floor, people can observe an overview on the landscape from a low point. Through a large mirror, the artificial lakes and the former slag heaps of the park, which are otherwise not accessible for the public, can be experienced from a bird's eye perspective. The mirror works both ways, and the interior as well as people inside the pavilion are reflected above the ground in it, visible from afar. More installations using trampoline in our blog

BE OPEN Art is happy to announce its first ever Artist of the Year. Theophilus Tetteh, also known by his brush name Nii Odai, experimental and expressionist artist from Ghana, has been selected by the biggest vote among the monthly ratings. Aiming to showcase young talents, every month of 2020 BE OPEN Art invited art enthusiasts to choose the best artist among those exhibited in the online gallery. The artist whose works gained a majority of votes throughout the year was then named the Artist of the Year. Our congratulations to NiiOdai who will receive the cash prize of €500! We also take the opportunity to applaud all the featured artists and thank everyone who voted. See more of NiiOdai’s works here

Local practice Knorr & Pürckhauer architekten has designed a new extension for a retirement center run by the St. Peter and Paul parish church foundation in Zurich. Conceived as a neighborhood pavilion that serves the entire community, the addition is located in the courtyard of a perimeter block development and comprises three stacked rooms. The ground-floor level features floor-to-ceiling glazing and offers a flexible space for the residents of the retirement center to pursue their hobbies. Designed to house new offices for the client, the level above is covered by a tent-like roof made from green pre-oxidized copper and punctuated with large circular windows that let the natural light fill the white interiors. The auditorium in the basement is connected with the two upper floors by a spiral staircase.

BE OPEN Art is happy to announce that Corinna Wagner, a self-taught artist based in Frankfurt, Germany, has been voted the Artist of the Month by the visitors of art.beopenfuture.com Aiming to showcase emerging talents, every month we invite people passionate with art to choose the best artist among those exhibited in our online gallery. Congratulations to Corinna, whose mesmerizing paintings have gained her a majority of votes in February! We also take the opportunity to applaud all the featured artists and thank everyone who voted. See more of Corinna’s works here

As part of the RCA’s Living in the Anthropocene project intended to explore the perceived values of natural and manmade materials in the anthropocene era, the Royal College of Art graduate Jie Wu has created a series of miniature storage boxes by casting rare antique rosewood in resin made up of different colours. Aiming to reconfigure resin so that it can be considered a timeless treasure, Wu casts chunks of a precious type of rosewood sourced from a remote village in China in resin, and cuts the blocks using a CNC machine for over 20 hours. After this, the containers are polished to create a high-gloss finish. In this way, such non-recyclable material as resin can be useful for decades to come and therefore be considered sustainable. The designer plans to continue developing the collection, adding larger pieces, such as furniture. More design objects made from resin and organic materials in our blog

Macramé is a sort of textile produced using knotting instead of weaving or knitting. Macramé works that constitute kNOTs collection by Dutch artist Sandra de Groot of Atelier CHAOS are soft wearable sculptures that combine elements of craft, sculpture, and architecture. The elaborate headpieces and ornate armor-like tops are knotted by hand from high quality cotton rope, which allows the pieces to maintain their inherent structure and shape. More macramé sculptures and installations in our blog