SYNTH-Kollektion

Designing a Future Heritage

Kenan Alkuwatly

Juli / July - 2022

Hochschule der Bildenden Künste Saar

Diplom

Description

The “SYNTH-Collection” is a celebration of a new paradigm for handicrafts where design, craft knowledge, and digital tools work together to preserve a traditional craft and adapt it to the requirements of the 21st century. The project is a reinterpretation of the traditional levantine wood inlay. A new production method has emerged through introducing new technologies and materials in an attempt to expand the vocabulary of this craft. The collection consists of three side tables that represent the most important pattern-families used in Islamic geometric ornamentation (four, five, six fold symmetry). Three existing patterns from three regions of the greater middle east were digitally manipulated to give them a digitised, pixelated appearance. They were then produced during a complex process using precise machine and handicraft techniques.