DIAMANTINA BY FERNANDO & HUMBERTO CAMPANA
The 2008 Design Miami/ Designer of the Year Award
Fernando and Humberto Campana of Estudio Campana create singularly joyful and expressive designs that bridge handcraft, limited edition, and mass production, frequently using discarded and mundane materials.
For Design Miami/ 2008 the Campana brothers created Diamantina using the native Brazilian plant Apui, which grows on and eventually chokes rainforest trees. This rattan-like fiber is woven around plastic garden chairs and other ready-made plastic objects, such as discarded toys, dolls, flip-flops, and tires. Like the rainforest trees, the man-made objects are almost entirely swallowed up by the organic material, symbolizing nature's triumph over the synthetic world. With Diamantina, the Campana brothers expanded on this concept by introducing native Brazilian amethyst crystals into the woven structure, creating a series of biomorphic islands that visitors were encouraged to sit on and explore.