INTERVIEW

Julia Lohmann

Biography

Julia Lohmann’s work explores provocative contemporary issues such as the contradictions in our relationship to animals as sources of food and materials. The German-born, London-based designer regularly transforms the practice of product design into a rich and complex medium of social investigation and debate. By working with off-cuts of leather and other meat industry waste products, she probes those contradictions while giving value to leftovers. Her work is often polemical, but everything Lohmann designs is intended to be useful.

Interview

What is your definition of product design?

I have a very wide definition of product design; or rather, I do not really believe in the segmentation of design into different disciplines. Design in its widest sense is about identifying problems and addressing them. Product design concerns itself with the three-dimensional world and our interaction with objects.

What do you do in this field?

With my products I trigger thoughts about our interaction with products. How do we sustain ourselves? How much do we know about the objects we buy and consume? The objects I make have a dual function: you can use them as objects in the established sense, for example, by sitting on them, but also as objects that help you consider and define your own position towards the man-made world. A writer once described them as “Ethical Barometers”.

How do you start to design a product?

I usually start by identifying an area of thought that intrigues me; for example, a question I have been asked or a fundamental one facing our society. Why do we accept something? Where are we going? A fascination with a particular material, such as seaweed, is another starting point. Nature, science, travel, or social interaction can all spark off projects. The final outcome of the process from inspiration to production is not predetermined. I do not sit down planning to make another chair or light; the object becomes a chair or light because I believe it to be the best possible way of communicating a particular thought or concept.

What problems do you commonly have to address?

I address the same problems that every designer is faced with: Can it be made? What should it be made of? How do I source materials? Who can help me make it? What happens with it when it breaks? Can it have another life or function? How can I design out waste? I also address questions through the concept behind the design: Why are we acting like we do? Have we made the most of this material? Do we understand how and why we like something? What does an object say about its origins, maker, user, and life cycle? I am trying to design the story the object tells just as carefully as the object itself.

Kelp Constructs, 2008. These seaweed lamps are one of the first experiments with kelp by the designer.

Ruminant Bloom, 2004. These flowerlike lights are made of preserved cow and sheep stomachs, perhaps provoking mixed feelings somewhere between attraction and aversion.

Cowbenches, 2005. These benches explore the threshold between animal and material.