Mark Sturkenboom

Collection: Small Gestures Big Expectations

 

a and b: 21 gram
c: Ceramics
d and e: Domestic machinery
f: Evolution
g and h: Watching time fly by

Design vision

Cross-fertilization between stories and products brings forward new forms and new content. My role as a designer is that of an escape artist: I examine products and set them free from conventional use. My collection is a series of reinterpretations of objects interconnected by the themes of love and time. The table clock, the urn, the vase and the mousetrap in their new shape get intertwined with new associations.  Central to my table clock Watching time fly is not the indication of the moment, but its passing. The seemingly impossible becomes real: one literally sees time flying by. Pablo Picasso already told us: ‘What one can imagine is by definition part of reality.’

Born: 1983 Utrecht NL

Mark was an intern at Atelier Ted Noten
Contact and information:
info@marksturkenboom.com
www.marksturkenboom.com

Research and Inspiration

I focus not on the appearance of things, but on what I call the deeper layers in the relation between an object and its owner. What I design is meant to call forward a myriad of associations and to stimulate our thinking about what counts to us in our lives. My mouse trap started with the idea that our households are over regulated domains, with a strict order as to who we allow to enter and stay and who we exclude from this privilege. This includes humans as well as animals. It’s more or less normal for a house wife to buy a pet mouse for her child in a pet shop. But when a wild mouse enters our house uninvited, beyond our will and control, the event is strangely enough answered with panic and violence. My mousetrap is designed to change the arrival of the unwanted guest into an arrival of the long awaited. Off course it provides the mouse with a safe place to stay, water and food at hand, but more important it changes our attitudes. As my mouse trap is an ideal place to stay for a mouse, the owner of my house trap will inevitably wake up one morning with the strong wish that his or her mouse trap will no longer be empty. Sweet anticipation is the result. Once you decided to buy one of my products a complicated engagement lies ahead of you. My table clock, urn and vase are not just functional and good looking. In their presence and while handling them they invite you to think about time, love passed and the possibility to free yourself from the burden of your possessions by destroying them.