Still Life Stories

Drawing upon Dutch Still Life Painting of the 17th century, Still Life Stories presents a series of multipurpose food containers, that interpret classical paintings in a contemporary manner.

Still Life Stories straddles the border between art and design, pure aesthetics and functionality. It is intended to facilitate an experimental dinner party, by opening new ways of experiencing the meal.

In Still Life Stories the abundance of consumer and material culture is both parodied and literally rendered as food for thought –
Still Life Stories presents a series of multipurpose food containers in forms that echo those of these classical Vanitas paintings (ex: dead animals) but interpret them in a contemporary manner.

The stories told by these contemporary and functional Still Life porcelain pieces render visible what is normally difficult to see: in these stories the inside is brought outside and that which is normally consumed becomes the vessel for other temporary objects. While everyday life objects such as serving dishes and containers, the objects in Still Life Stories are designed to promote a new experience of the everyday: they encourage and invite playful handling as well as challenge the user to discover the ideas behind their design.

Still Life Stories is intended to facilitate an experimental dinner party, by opening new ways of experiencing the meal and which parallels to food design. The dinner takes on the sense of a special act or performance. The actors are animals made of porcelain. These serving plates, bowls, and cups take the shape of living and lively animals while simultaneously playing cadavers. Besides the animal food containers there are also abstracted organic shapes from the inside of the body.