Exhibition: Fernando and Humberto Campana in London

The Design Museum in London is showing the work of the Brazilian brothers under the title "Zest for Life – Fernando and Humberto Campana" until September 12, 2004.

Fernando and Humberto Campana combine found objects and have a preference for daring colors and forms in their design. Their challenge is to transform simple materials through unique combinations and new technologies into a high-class object. They are inspired, on the one hand, by the Brazilian culture with its music, films and carnival, and, on the other hand, directly from the streets of Brazil: they take the inventiveness of the slums as their model and use the cheapest materials, remnants and found objects. The resulting, vivid style is characterized by a new energy and what is unmistakably a part of today's Brazil, the essence of which the brothers Campana describe with one term: a zest for life.

Neither of the two brothers originally wanted to become a designer. Humberto, born in 1953, studied law, and Fernando, born in 1961, studied architecture. In the mid-eighties they taught themselves to make furniture. With simple materials and technologies, they designed sculptural seating furniture. Since the late 1990s the have been cooperating with the Italian designer Edra.

The exhibition presents the development of a few pieces, from the original idea and raw material to the prototype and, finally, to the finished object. In addition, the influences and working methods of the Campanas are shown.

Further information at

www.designmuseum.org

Design Museum

Shad Thames

London SE1 2YD

Great Britain