As part of textile brand Kvadrat's Hallingdal 65, a project in which 32 talented designers were asked to to create entirely new works using the textile originally designed by Nanna Ditzel, Dutch designer Hjortefar designed two giant portraits (BUM and NANNA) made up of fabric covered padded pixels in 29 colors. In total each piece contains 7200 pixels and measures 3 x 6 meters.
Each portrait is created using 60 × 60 pixels, each pixel being a 5 × 5 cm small padded foam piece on a base of MDF. The pieces have been padded by inmates of Denmark's Vridsløselille State Prison.
BUM:
The project asked the designers to explore new applications for the fabric. In his own words, Hjortfar describes the thinking behind his portraits:
‘When I told my dad about my participation in this project he just replied “BUM!”’, remembers Mads Hjort aka Hjortefar. ‘First I was puzzled but later he told me about a book published by Kvadrat 25 years ago. It was a story about an unusual man, answering to the name Bum (Boom), because he was born the same year World War I began’.NANNA:
Hjortefar had to know more.‘I found the book on my grandmother´s bookshelf and got hold of a short documentary about Bum from the Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s archives. This proved to be a thrilling encounter with an exuberant, vivacious and tireless entrepreneur who among other things collaborated with Nanna Ditzel when creating Hallingdal.’ After getting to know Bum and Nanna better, it became obvious to Hjortefar that he wanted to create portraits of these two masterminds.
Exhibit images:
Hjortefar.com
See the other designs for Kvadrat's Hallingdal 65 project here.
