Woven islands

Brazilian designers Humberto and Fernando Campana presented the Diamantina installation at Design Miami 2008.

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Diamantina by the Campana Brothers

Brazilian designers Humberto and Fernando Campana presented the Diamantina installation at Design Miami 2008, after being recognised with the Designer of the Year award. Diamantina incorporated Brazilian amethyst crystals into a weave-structure, creating a series of biomorphic islands that visitors were encouraged to sit in and explore. As with the brothers’ TransPlastic series, the structure is woven from the native Brazilian plant Apuí, which grows on and eventually chokes rainforest trees. In TransPlastic, this rattan-like fibre is woven around discarded plastic objects such as chairs, toys, dolls, flip-flops and tires, however for Diamantina only amethyst crystals were used. Like the rainforest trees, the man-made objects are almost entirely swallowed by the organic material, symbolising nature’s triumph over the synthetic world.