Post by James Goggin

Following on from my post about Endgrained, an exhibition of new chairs, tables, stools, shelves, and mirrors by Martino Gamper that just finished at Objectspace Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, here is some more information about the ancillary exhibition, Wood from the trees. Wood from the trees was a collaborative research project by Martino Gamper, Objectspace, and Practise designers James Goggin and Shan James, forming an ephemeral archive of different timber histories in Aotearoa. Drawing from a rich range of sources including journals, magazines, photographic collections, and timber museums, the content explored the life of the tree, centring on the transformative moment of wood becoming timber when it is taken from its ecological context and placed in human hands. Engrained was produced using a timber Gamper designed in collaboration with Italian company Alpi, made from the waste stream of industrial veneer production. Emerging from the designer’s imagination, this new man-made timber possesses a language of grain and colour not found in naturally grown timbers. Seen together the two projects express Gamper’s enduring love of timber and honour the decades he has spent working with this material that is as old as time. Photography (slides 1, 3–7) by Sam Hartnett. Special thanks to Kim Paton (Objectspace director), Victoria McAdam (head of communications and partnerships), Mirabelle Field (research and gallery assistant), and the rest of the incredible Objectspace crew for their huge amount of work and generous collaboration on this project.