Sabine Marcelis

We already collaborated in 2021 for the IKEA Art Event, and that is when the team at IKEA asked me to think about designing a lighting collection. A conversation that later on developed into a broader brief of bringing warmth to the home. 

At the premises, the objective was to inject warmth into the home. Using lighting is one way of achieving this goal, and it is the core of the collection, but it is possible to provoke  this feeling of cosiness through materials and tactility; or through the warmth of rugs and objects that encourage interactions. The glass set and the carafe for instance are also meant for sharing. I tried to think of different ways to interpret this idea. 

The collection was produced all over the place. It’s funny actually because for some pieces, like the tables, we had to adapt. They were made in a facility that usually creates pots and pans as it was actually the cleverest way to produce this design. It was very interesting for me as a designer to get an insight into how the product development team sources manufacturers depending on the specific demands of a design. This made the collaboration very easygoing and nice. We had such a good dynamic between the IKEA team and mine, as we were on the same page about trying to make these objects of the highest quality possible. The shapes are simple and strip back minimal design, which means that the details really make or break the designs. It was quite elemental that it should have invisible details.

It is definitely a different way of working. I started the collection by framing the process because when you think about it, it was a very open brief.  I thought of the idea of using a line, a volume with three elements. Take the lamp for instance: essentially it is just a line, yet curved into a circle. All shapes need a twist to make them special and to allow them to fulfil their function. These circular lamps are genuinely pulled off the wall allowing the light to flow down the wall. The carafe is fundamentally a volume, the thing that makes it a carafe is the little spout that completes it, bringing in the functionality. I strip things back as much as possible to keep only the essentials, and to create what I think is a timeless design. My work for IKEA is not driven by any trend, it is very “now”. I wanted this collection to become something that people would keep for a very long time: the colour palette is large and I hope that there is something for everyone.

It is indeed the opposite of what I usually do which is very cool. I was in fact often asked by brands to create designs but it was never really appealing to me as I love to create directly with the ateliers and to be fully involved in the process. I think that’s taken away when you work with a brand because the job mainly consists in providing a sketch. As I don’t find it interesting to work in that way, I try not to work in that way. With IKEA, it was different, I saw the collaboration as a step towards making objects for the broad public. IKEA is the best partner for that and the team was nice enough to keep us really involved in the production side of the collaboration. Which was a fun process. 

So far, reactions have been positive. The rewarding part of the project will be to see how people are going to interpret the pieces at home. These are objects that are flexible and ambiguous, one can mount them in different ways. The doughnut lamp, for instance, can either be a table lamp or a wall lamp. At the opening, I heard some people say they wanted to get three mirrors and hang them in the hallway. It’s going to be really cool to see how people place it in their homes.

Objects do have another use: they can be seen as sculptural pieces. They don’t always give away what they are when they are not turned on. That said, I do not think objects need to have many functions. They can. But I like pure things. This is a lamp, not a speaker. I think it could be interesting to think about hybrid objects, but this collection is simply about questioning: this is a lamp, what makes it a lamp? This is a carafe, what makes it a carafe? It is very much about the essence of objects.

This question came up at the beginning of the project. At IKEA, they got deep into the subject: what’s happening at home right now? They even invited a professor in chronobiology to talk about the connection between well-being and lighting: how does light affect people during the day while being active? Or on the reverse, how does having a light that is too cold prevent people from a good night of sleep, and so on…

A lot of people used to experience their homes only before and after work. If the lights are not on, people are still confronted with them in their space. If the lighting is cold, it can make them uncomfortable. There is a lot of power in lighting, as well as in architecture. A home is an intimate place, and we tend to construct our private spaces in a very personal way. With lighting, one can highlight whatever they feel like emphasizing, making the space unique. And that is what I enjoy about it.