INTERVIEWS
Nurturing Playfulness in Design. Interview with Object Designer, Anton Defant.
2024-12-22 11:25:25 +0100 Ewan Waddell

We recently sat down with friend of the studio, Anton Defant. We're currently in the throes of a couple of different collaborations with Anton, so we thought, why not make it one more, in the form of an interview. We talked about the evolution of his playful practice, his approach to interiors, and why he thinks furniture can be a vessel for communicating deeper thoughts. Enjoy.

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I opened by asking Anton who he is, and how he might describe his approach to design.

"I'm Anton Defant and I'm an Object Designer based in Berlin. I think my main focus lies in the intersection between product and sculpture; moving in between those poles. And recently I've been working more in scenography and interior spaces. But still, my focus remains on a very idea-based approach to product and object design."

Having coincidentally interviewed Anton for another project in the past, I was aware that he had more formal design studies in Vienna — initially exploring work which was very different to his current practice. I wondered what it was about that period that he didn't connect with, and how the journey since has been.

"I couldn't see myself having fun designing ergonomical office chairs the rest of my life, and I felt like a huge part of me is very explorative and playful and not really responding to designing ergonomic stuff. Or even follow[ing] the logic of economical success of a product or something. So I kind of started to reject that, in a way."

"Meanwhile, while I was studying with a friend, we felt like we needed something outside of our studies to stimulate our design and our playful side. So we just went to the trash yard of our university every week and we built something from the trash. And then slowly but steadily this idea arose to do exhibitions. Then we started to design our own interiors for that and always did the scenography."

"We painted all the rooms we we always like 'recycled' the spaces. And because we had shitty spaces to exhibit in, we always had to come up with a nice idea to create the world our objects look good in or feel comfortable [in]."

How has your approach to interior work evolved since then? I wondered.

"Now, with more serious and not so controllable environments, like showrooms and more commercial interiors, I'm confronted with way more functional aspects. And that's also a thing I feel l'm changing right now, to combine the very subtle playfulness with functional needs in a well working, functional environment. So I try to base the whole functional interior on a nice narrative, and then work it out."

"This is challenging because I [don't] have the full power to just say, 'Yeah, let's build a house inside of the house or let's paint the whole space like this'. But I feel like the playfulness that define my style are still in the core of everything I'm doing."

Some of my favourite works of Anton are his furniture pieces. Particularly the camping chair sofa. I wondered where he locates furniture in the hierarchy of his practice.

"I think furniture in general never was my focus. In a way, I'm sometimes surprised to see myself designing furniture all the time, because I'm like, why furniture? But I think it's quite easy to explain."

"I think furniture from all the functional objects is the one that has the least functionality in it. So a chair can look many ways as long you have a specific height and can sit on it. And with a light, it's the same as long as you have 'light', which you can read underneath, or use for cooking, or whatever. Then you can consider it a lamp. So it's this intersection between serving a purpose and being able to be bored and to be admired and to be a product. But also transporting a lot of information and a lot of deeper thoughts in a way; deeper topics. But still, it remains a consumable product. So I think furniture is just on the intersection of what I like to do. It's kind of creating products that aren't really products, but communicate something."

Anton recently designed a scene concept for a TERMINO space. He went into detail about the thought process behind it.

"The overall idea was to create a cantina, or like a cafe. Some scenario which is involving a lot of people; the community aspect. The next idea was to to put it into an institutional space, like a museum. And then the next core idea was to pair it with this party tent."

"The idea was to contrast [the tent] with more sophisticated design pieces, and decontextualize it. And then create a place where this tent is not just a tent anymore, but it's part of a bigger scenario. In that context, I was trying to shift its appearance to break this coldness of some design. Because I think a lot of good design, or a lot of design, tries to be serious at the moment, and I just thought that taking a beer tent and putting it in an institutional space with a well-designed kitchen would  make a nice, humorous contrast."

Thank you to Anton.

Interview by Ewan Waddell.

Images courtesy of the artist.

@ANTON DEFANT

As a final note, I was curious to learn what values Anton feels he shares with TERMINO.

"For sure, quality. A commitment to solving details. I would say also the aesthetical environment, and a very object-centric perspective."