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#20 Home Made
2007

The perfection of imperfect

by Humberto & Fernando Campana

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Your work shows your clear preference for the “manual” dimension, which we could express with the term “home made” – is this the result of a strong desire to rediscover your roots?
It is part of our background, connected to the place where we were born. We have never abandoned our roots. Although we work in São Paulo, Humberto and I have always maintained our contacts with manual skills and the concept of “home made”. We still visit the countryside, where our Italian grandparents live: they taught us that everything can be “made at home”, from pasta to soap. Even though our parents gave us plastic or tin toys, we kept making our own toys out of terracotta. This manual dimension is still very strong in our work even now.

The concept of production does not seem to describe your work very well. Can you think of a word to replace it?
I think the concept of “humanising production” is the principle of our work. Over time, Humberto and myself have given the Italian firms we work with a concept of “hand made” that rises above the banal level, that gives the product a more human feel, more personality. We try to create a dialogue with our means of production, to try and reconcile our ideas with what industry demands.

Is the fact of being Brazilian, children of a country built on a mosaic of cultures and experiences, and living in a society with huge inequalities something that has influenced your work?
We are both lucky and unlucky at the same time. Having grown up and continuing to live in Brazil has given us an insight into many social and economic issues, but we have also encountered a vast wealth of natural resources, which provide real inspiration for our creativity. It is precisely this flexibility in communicating which has allowed us to transport our designs to Italy while keeping our own identity intact.

How do your designs develop? What sources of inspiration have allowed you to reinterpret everyday objects under a new guise?
Most of our inspiration comes from the streets – our products are like portraits of the city of São Paulo which we have a constant dialogue with. A city with twenty million inhabitants, with its traffic and chaotic architecture, which we have managed to portray on the most traditional level, despite everything. We have described the city effectively by using humble materials in our designs. What look to be ordinary, unremarkable materials are presented in a new light, through
technological intervention, but they still maintain their identity, their tradition and their history.

How does the concept of imperfection, which is a key element of “hand made” products, interact with your work?
Imperfections in our work are certainly a value, because they make each piece unique. They give the object a personality during the assembly stage, which avoids the standardised feel of serial production.

Does the recovery of this manual dimension give you a professional and personal satisfaction that cannot be found in standardised production?
Mechanisation damages people. Nowadays we see assembly lines which are increasingly being automated, but we think of an assembly line as a team effort, almost a social process that can create a community and cultivate new ideas.

Interview by Marco Minuz

Humberto & Fernando Campana

Since 1983, Humberto Campana, lawyer, and Fernando Campana, architect, have worked together in São Paulo in the field of artistic design. Their philosophy is a combination of design, craftsmanship and production. In 1998 they began working with the Italian company Edra, which produced the famous “vermelha” chair, woven from 500 metres of red rope. In 1998 the MOMA in New York dedicated the “Project 66” exhibition to them, in conjunction with Ingo Maurer.

Tags: background, brazil, children, communicating, community, creativity, designs, desire, dialogue, dimension, Experiences, feel, fernando campana, firms, hand made, history, human, humanising, humberto campana, ideas, identity, industry, inhabitants, inspiration, issues, Italy, lucky, mosaic, pasta, people, personality, plastic, portraits, replace, roots, sao paulo, soap, social, Society, terracotta, toys, tradition, unlucky, work

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Images

Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna
Stefano Bonsi
The declaration of emotional independence of a brave Pinocchio who has decided to make himself a heart with a touch of creativity.
Marina Girardi
Progress flies! But where does its strength come from? My grandmother says that strength comes from the earth if treated with respect and knowledge handed down through generations.
Marina Girardi
Progress flies! But where does its strength come from? My grandmother says that strength comes from the earth if treated with respect and knowledge handed down through generations.
Camilla Andreani
The picture pokes fun at the advertisements that proclaim “hand made according to tradition” for industrially-produced foodstuffs which are the result of a clinical production process.
Jacopo Ferretti
A good dish depends on the choice of the right ingredients.
Cristina Portolano
Handing down the tradition of DIY... doing things that need doing inside and outside the home… handing it down to children... to make sure it is not lost because it’s useful and necessary!
Elisabetta Gironi
The subject is two brothers who live in their own home, a place of creativity and relaxation. The theme is obvious from the subject and the actual collage, which takes time and manual ability.
Liliana Salone
ITEM no. MZ308 - Two boxes, one containing small fragments of stone, and the other, tools. They are joined by the map of a timeless city and three small cogs. Remains, traces left by man bearing witness to his passage. Indelible signs.
Nicolò Vasini
“Home made” is something that involves use of your hands, without interference, but in close contact with the material. Your hands have to get dirty!
Marco Temperilli
Sarah Khamisi
This illustration represents a home made product, a clock made from things in my room. To design the product I used dice, a vinyl disc and a measuring tape. Elements which are simple but complete, a combination between real and unreal space.
Simone Cortesi
Nothing can represent the concept of “home made” as well as a human being. Humans are born, grow up, and make things. And biscuits are a real delight.
Andrea Cagnini
The illustration comes from the association of the generic concept “home made” to the label “made in Italy” which is now almost impossible to find and only occasionally adorns a product. Pizza is an ironic interpretation of the clichéd Italian label that restricts “Italianness” to material values.
Senera Muratori
The tree is a symbol of Nature that creates things with its own strength, its hands, those of the human being.
Senera Muratori
The tree is a symbol of Nature that creates things with its own strength, its hands, those of the human being.
Senera Muratori
... WIND ENERGY... “HOME MADE”... Energy and its source seen from a rather ironic point of view, a home made version with ice-cream spoons and a little person busy constructing a wind farm. A way to say that it only takes a little to do a lot.
Senera Muratori
SKY PAINTING. “Home made” also in the sense of vision. You can lose sight of small things. Every so often, it would be a good idea to try to redesign them with new eyes.
Senera Muratori
HOUSE OF ROLLING PINS. A kind of reinvention of the home, recycled with unusual objects like rolling pins, but deep down the concept is functional.
Laura Malinverni
I SHOULD HAVE LEARNED TO COOK. A horrifying idea when it comes to the breathless search for speed. A potential tragi-comic result of this market that forces us to accept goals that don’t belong to us and lets them proliferate.
Federica Castini
“HOME MADE” SUN. The photo is intended to show how man has gained the ability to imitate Nature, and imitate her “powers” in order to adapt them for domestic use.
Cristina Portolano
A family sipping a drink made at home… The choice of subject has a specific meaning, traditions that have now been lost. The photograph comes from an optical illusion and only if we distance our minds from it we can understand its importance.
Valentina Spina
An obvious allusion to an “instruction manual”, but the invitation to follow the directions reveals a lack of understanding: room for creativity.
Andrea Ferlauto

"Where I am, makes me what I am"

Anonymous at Galleria illy London
“The time is always right to do the right thing”

Martin Luther King
"Liberty is about our rights to question everything".

Ai Wei Wei

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The perfection of imperfect

by Humberto & Fernando Campana

Write a comment

Search illywords

Images

Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna

Stefano Bonsi

The declaration of emotional independence of a brave Pinocchio who has decided to make himself a heart with a touch of creativity.

Marina Girardi

Progress flies! But where does its strength come from? My grandmother says that strength comes from the earth if treated with respect and knowledge handed down through generations.

Marina Girardi

Progress flies! But where does its strength come from? My grandmother says that strength comes from the earth if treated with respect and knowledge handed down through generations.

Camilla Andreani

The picture pokes fun at the advertisements that proclaim “hand made according to tradition” for industrially-produced foodstuffs which are the result of a clinical production process.

Jacopo Ferretti

A good dish depends on the choice of the right ingredients.

Cristina Portolano

Handing down the tradition of DIY... doing things that need doing inside and outside the home… handing it down to children... to make sure it is not lost because it’s useful and necessary!

Elisabetta Gironi

The subject is two brothers who live in their own home, a place of creativity and relaxation. The theme is obvious from the subject and the actual collage, which takes time and manual ability.

Liliana Salone

ITEM no. MZ308 - Two boxes, one containing small fragments of stone, and the other, tools. They are joined by the map of a timeless city and three small cogs. Remains, traces left by man bearing witness to his passage. Indelible signs.

Nicolò Vasini

“Home made” is something that involves use of your hands, without interference, but in close contact with the material. Your hands have to get dirty!

Marco Temperilli

Sarah Khamisi

This illustration represents a home made product, a clock made from things in my room. To design the product I used dice, a vinyl disc and a measuring tape. Elements which are simple but complete, a combination between real and unreal space.

Simone Cortesi

Nothing can represent the concept of “home made” as well as a human being. Humans are born, grow up, and make things. And biscuits are a real delight.

Andrea Cagnini

Senera Muratori

The tree is a symbol of Nature that creates things with its own strength, its hands, those of the human being.

Senera Muratori

The tree is a symbol of Nature that creates things with its own strength, its hands, those of the human being.

Senera Muratori

... WIND ENERGY... “HOME MADE”... Energy and its source seen from a rather ironic point of view, a home made version with ice-cream spoons and a little person busy constructing a wind farm. A way to say that it only takes a little to do a lot.

Senera Muratori

SKY PAINTING. “Home made” also in the sense of vision. You can lose sight of small things. Every so often, it would be a good idea to try to redesign them with new eyes.

Senera Muratori

HOUSE OF ROLLING PINS. A kind of reinvention of the home, recycled with unusual objects like rolling pins, but deep down the concept is functional.

Laura Malinverni

I SHOULD HAVE LEARNED TO COOK. A horrifying idea when it comes to the breathless search for speed. A potential tragi-comic result of this market that forces us to accept goals that don’t belong to us and lets them proliferate.

Federica Castini

“HOME MADE” SUN. The photo is intended to show how man has gained the ability to imitate Nature, and imitate her “powers” in order to adapt them for domestic use.

Cristina Portolano

A family sipping a drink made at home… The choice of subject has a specific meaning, traditions that have now been lost. The photograph comes from an optical illusion and only if we distance our minds from it we can understand its importance.

Valentina Spina

An obvious allusion to an “instruction manual”, but the invitation to follow the directions reveals a lack of understanding: room for creativity.

Andrea Ferlauto

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Where to find