FONDO + ESTO
re-thought the relationships between the human and the non-human, recognising the agency of matter as an active part of the world’s dynamics.
A perspective that challenges anthropocentrism and opens new ways of understanding life, culture, and nature as an interconnected web.
"Together, all the elements inhabit space with their unique language, challenging perception and inviting us to rethink our relationship with objects, materials, and the world around us."
The Installation
For the scenography, ESTO presents a design based on tension—both material and conceptual. Objects that seem contradictory interact to create movement: the softness of the sphere contrasts with the metallic cutlery, which moves as if trying to escape and pierce the balloon.
Driven by tiny motors with magnets hidden beneath the table, the cutlery rotates around the plate. The menu, printed with thermochromic ink, reacts to heat, revealing the text underneath only when touched.
The Menu
The menu was as radical and as animated as could be. Painted by hand with thermochromic ink, the dish list could only be revealed when heat was applied.
It just needed a little warmth to reveal itself, as we like to say.
The Artist's Statement
The chairs and benches, under the name “Disguise Series 00”, explore disguise as a way of redefining the everyday. Tubular steel dressed in a sharp-edged textile cover, handcrafted to transform it into a creature. Like a ritual, dressing these pieces grants them a new identity —half furniture, half being.
Their pointed forms evoke natural morphogenesis, creating an organic, almost living pattern that invites an instinctive, emotional connection.
In collaboration with ESTO Estudio at their house & studio, in Madrid.
Photography: Blanca Guerrero
