DESIGNERS
Maire-Louise Hellgren, Deniz Üner
Maire-Louise Hellgren is focusing on sustainability, up-cycling and bringing mindfulness to our daily lives through design.
Deniz Üner is focusing on the concepts of modularity and diversity while targeting minimal, environmentally-friendly and long-lasting solutions to make human life better quality.
The common points of the designers are meeting on sustainability, being environmental-friendly and hands on making processes.
ARTISAN
Wood artisan Hacı has been creating wood work both in the form of objects, furniture and architectural elements. His workshop is located on the ground floor of a building in Tomtom Neighbourhood.
PROCEESS & PRODUCTS
The Wood Workshop Team designed a low seating furniture family consisting of 4 different products with different shapes, showing the importance of moving the body into creative and different ways of sitting. The idea aims to create a connection between body, nature and soul through the usage of wood which can bring healing to the every day lives of people.
* Street View is a collaborative design project curated by In-Between Design Platform as part of the Equal Spaces project. Initiated by the Swedish Institute and The Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul, Equal Spaces aims to explore creative, smart and inclusive cities.
Street View brings together four Swedish designers with four Turkish designers and four local artisans in Istanbul in order to collaboratively develop a number of design projects based on the artisans workshops, their histories and knowledge of production.
The main objectives of Street View are to contribute to discussion on global design, enrich the design process through intercultural exchanges, celebrate artisanal and local production and - most importantly – support building empathy in the society by inclusive processes and collaborations.
The idea was developed by In-Between Design Platform in dialogue with the Swedish institute and the Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul as part of Equal Spaces project. In-Between Design Space is located in Beyoğlu; a district of Istanbul hosting various artisans. Most of these artisans work on the street level and contribute to the cultural life in Istanbul. With this as a reference point, Street View is aiming to co-create in the context of intercultural design exchange.
Process
After selecting artisan workshops in Tomtom and Perşembe Pazarı neighbourhoods in Beyoğlu, four Swedish and four Turkish designers were invited to join the project. The research fields and previous experiences of the designers were the main criteria of the selection process. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, each designer duo were introduced to each other via video calls. Following this, the artisans and their workshops were introduced to the designers. Ideas and design concepts evolved along various video calls. Parallel to this, material and production research has been conducted.