Rolls-Royce has revealed the selected styles for the “Spirit of Ecstasy Challenge”. As element of the marque’s “Muse” artwork software, this hottest biennial initiative invites designers to make unique artworks impressed by the marque’s sculptural figurine. With a aim on textiles, this inaugural competitiveness has requested contributors to look into the possibilities of products, though exploring the boundaries of textile design.
The three preferred proposals method the subject in inventive ways, collectively speaking of our existing environmental and societal concerns. Bi Rongrong has included elements and imagery from the city landscape into her perform, Ghizlane Sahli highlights the attractiveness found in reused products, when Scarlett Yang’s dynamic textile incorporates a material she designed from algae extract and silk cocoon protein.
As an artist and designer, Bi’s tactic is significantly fascinating. She collects photos of architecture, accumulating elements and ornaments from urban everyday living then, through manual or electronic processing, reworking her ensemble into paintings, collages, movies and internet site-distinct installations. Her proposal for Rolls-Royce builds on the investigate into what she phrases the “urban skins” of cities — the surface area and areas of the metropolis this kind of as the ornamented elemental designs carved on a creating, vegetation expanding on the edges of the pavement, or texts from wall posters. She is combining this principle with her apply of layering diverse products with LED animation. Her remaining Spirit of Ecstasy style will attribute imagery collected from city skins, incorporating metallic and fabric to link with the physicality of automobile generating.
In the meantime, textile designer Sahli’s perform is a direct reference to our vital environmental issues, discovering the elegance that can be uncovered in every day objects through ingenious reuse and recycling of supplies. Her proposal for Rolls-Royce carries on on the theme of elevating recycled components by showing their uniqueness, worth and features. Listed here, she is generating a suspended sculpture designed from recycled plastics, mixed with white silk and goldthread, configured to convey traits of the Spirit of Ecstasy figurine.
The last project is by multi-disciplinary designer Yang. She techniques concepts of sustainability by means of innovation, biomateriality and digital trend, investigating hybridizing hand-made craft and industrial technological know-how. Her dynamic textile style and design for Spirit of Ecstasy will integrate a new materials developed by Yang for this certain venture which is made from algae extract and silk cocoon protein.
The “Spirit of Ecstasy Challenge” jury was formed by Rolls-Royce director of design Anders Warming, Dior Men’s director of jewellery and Ambush imaginative director Yoon Ahn, director of the Style Museum in London Tim Marlow and principal at Counterspace Studio in Johannesburg Sumayya Vally. In a assertion, they explained: “This challenge is about celebrating the bridge between custom and innovation and all the designers we picked understand how people are related to our surroundings. The three winners will provide forth strategies that touched deeply on essential difficulties of our time.”
Rolls-Royce is locating itself more and more concerned in the arts, supporting galleries and establishments and initiating a collection of applications championing artwork, design and the moving picture. Talking with Jessica Persson Conway, head of the company’s artwork plan a minor while in the past, I asked her how important it is for a model at the pinnacle of luxury to be associated with the arts. She replied: “It’s essential. The arts are a source of inspiration and we have a obligation to support potential generations of art and style expertise.”
As a relative newcomer to Rolls-Royce, but with a qualifications in the BMW Team as head of MINI structure for a number of years, Warming is also enthusiastic about this most up-to-date project. “Reviewing the design proposals was a fascinating system and we have been introduced with thoughts that were being forward-wondering and shocking.”
The a few winners will now be invited to the dwelling of Rolls-Royce in Goodwood, British isles in which they will collaborate with the company’s craftspeople to finish their creation. The remaining operate will be unveiled later on in the yr before heading on an intercontinental tour.
See my job interview with Jessica Persson Conway, head of the Rolls-Royce artwork method. Explore some other creative car or truck/design/artwork collaborations: BMW and Jeff Koons and with Spanish artist Almudena Romero, Ares and sculptor Hubert Phipps and Lexus and the Royal Higher education of Artwork.