Frail World Table by Alexandr Strepetov is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2022 Bronze A' Design Award in Fine Arts and Art Installation Design Competition Category.
BronzeFine Art· 2022
Frail World Table
Client: Alexandr Strepetov
Bronze A' Design Award Winner in Fine Art Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #140368The Design
About Frail World Table
The Frail World table on wide stable legs from the side looks unshakable, like the universe itself. However, when viewed from above, its thin lines, enclosed in a circle of tabletops, form the symbol Pacific on the fragile glass. Life and peace on Earth look just as fragile from space. When a fragile peace is destroyed by war, it is very difficult to sit down at the negotiating table. But that is the only possible salvation.
The Recognition
About the Bronze A' Design Award
Frail World Table is a Bronze A' Design Award winner, a highly prestigious recognition granted to outstanding designs distinguished by creativity, ingenuity, and astuteness. Bronze winners are amply skillful and strikingly creative artifacts that authenticate the vast experience, imagination, and resourcefulness of their designers. Frail World Table is expected to be a highly regarded, admired, and cherished object that is notably professional and innovative. This Bronze A' Design Award-winning design incorporates best practices in art, science, design, and technology, and is excellent for its attention to detail. Frail World Table splendidly satisfies needs, touches desires, charms feelings, and appeals to curiosity.
Interviews
Grand Interview
Your innovative approach to symbolizing peace through the Frail World Table's unique design has garnered recognition, including a Bronze A' Design Award - could you elaborate on how the recent events in Ukraine influenced your artistic vision for this piece?
After February 24, 2022, I was arrested at an anti-war protest, and a court date was set. My wife signed an anti-war petition by teachers and was forced to leave her job. During this time, we received immense emotional support from the kind offer by the A' Design Award team to participate in the competition on preferential terms.At that time, I had several almost finished pieces, as well as completed works that had never been exhibited anywhere but were finished more than two years prior. I had to quickly decide which work to submit for the competition, as there was only one month left before the deadline. While contemplating this choice, I was in the process of finishing a metal bench, but my wife suddenly noticed that the outline of a table model resembled Gerald Holtom's Pacific peace symbol. To complete the resemblance, it only lacked one line, which could be added as an inscription on the glass. The relevance of such a design made the choice of work for the A' Design Award unmistakable.
The Frail World Table presents a powerful metaphor through its contrasting elements of stability and fragility - what inspired you to specifically choose glass and the Pacific symbol to convey this message about world peace?
I will probably disappoint you because the idea of using glass in the Frail World table model emerged long before the name and its conceptual idea were born. I simply felt sorry to hide the structure and ornamentation of the legs under an opaque tabletop. It turns out that a powerful metaphor was prepared by chance.
In developing the Frail World Table from September 2016 to its completion in March 2022, how did your perspective on its symbolism and meaning evolve, particularly in light of changing global events?
Before March 2022, the table was, for me, more of a realization of my aesthetic inspiration, but after its transformation into Frail World, it acquired a thought-provoking anti-war resonance.
Behind the Design
Press Kit
Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.
- Unique Properties
- The project used the original design of the table-legs. When viewed from above through the glass, the lines of the table-legs, together with the inscription on the top, form the symbol "Pacific".
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Height 174 mm
Diameter 430 mm - Tags
- Frail World, pacific, table, layout, ornament
- Production Technology
- Once I was drawing a graphic work. Suddenly I saw an opportunity to make volumetric dynamic modules of the same shape for unusual furniture. I made a table layout out of painted wood and glass. Then I left this work for a long time. And now, in this dark time, I suddenly realized that if I add an inscription to the glass of the table top, then along with the lines of the table legs, the symbol "Pacific" will turn out.
- Design Challenge
- If a new interesting idea suddenly arises in the process of work, it is usually very difficult for me to switch and make at least a fragment of it a reality. As a rule, such ideas are postponed for a long time along with other sketches of unrealized projects. But the "Frail World" layout was the design that pulled me away from other works and was almost finished. Then I had put it aside for a long period of time. Now I've seen it in a new way. It came as a surprise to me that it contained the potential for important new ideas.
- Research
- I've explored what an artist can get out of a single drawing. Because every work of art has the potential to develop its ideas in a variety of different objects. The only graphic work became the starting point both for the design and ornament of the table, as well as for a number of other objects that are not at all similar to Frail World. This is a rather paradoxical result.
- Inspiration
- Idea of a table came from observing my own artworks and mock-up immediately followed. Main idea is to show fragility of a world embodied in glass. Design is based on a recent events in Ukraine with homage to Gerald Holtom designs, who pioneered peace symbol we all know today. Inability of sitting around broken glass table is a metaphor of a war breaking foundation of the world peace.
- Project Duration
- Work on the design of the Frail World table was started in September 2016 in St. Petersburg. Then the project was suspended. In March 2022, the design was completed in St. Petersburg.
- Operation Flow
- The idea behind the table 'Frail World' is dualistic. From different points of view, we can see different sides of the world, which are embodied in the object. When viewed from the side, the wide colorful legs of the table are visible. It is a sustainable world with its beauty and diversity. But if you look at 'Frail World' from above, we see fragile glass. This is a symbol of the fact that at any moment the balance in the world can be upset. If so, the world will become unstable and unreliable, it can be broken in an instant. The inscription symbolizes the need to maintain peace in order to preserve the integrity and beauty of the world.
- Patents
- n/a
- Image Credits
- Image #1: photographer Olga Morozova, Frail world, 2022.
Image #2: photographer Olga Morozova, Frail world, 2022.
Image #3: photographer Olga Morozova, Frail world, 2022.
Image #4: photographer Olga Morozova, Frail world, 2022.
Image #5: photographer Olga Morozova, Frail world, 2022.
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