gt2p or Great Things To People is a Santiago, Chile-based design firm involved in varying projects that focus on architecture, art and design. gt2P’s work encourages new encounters between emerging technologies and the richness of Chile’s local culture as expressed in traditional materials and techniques. Through utilising modern advancements while still maintaining the valuable artistic dimension that connects them with their cultural heritage, a transcontinental link emerges between these creatives from Chile and the Eastern Cape-born ceramic artist Andile Dyalvane.
At the Design Indaba Conference 2017, the Chilean firm and the South African ceramicist teamed up to collaborate on a never never-before-seen installation.
Formed in 2009 by partners Tamara Pérez, Sebastián Rozas, Guillermo Parada, and Eduardo Arancibia, gt2p’s work is so diverse it’s often difficult to categorize, and their numerous projects range from digitally crafted bronze jewellery pieces to a set of boulder-like stools made out of remelted volcanic rock.
“Our projects often start with an obsession; as we share it, we give it shape,” says co-founder Rozas. “We aren’t used to working with a brief to create new things, and we don’t work within the limitations of a commission. It just starts—often without a name or even a use. From there, we begin to create new things as a sequence or variation of the original. Only then might it become something functional.”
World-renowned, highly skilled and deeply passionate about his South African heritage, Dyalvane finds that working with clay grants him a greater connection to his ancestry, intimately connecting him to the four elements: earth, water, wind and fire. Like gt2p, his work exposes the unexpected value to be found in manual processes, cultural heritage and local materials.
In conversation with Dyalvane last year, he told us about his passion for his craft. “Clay breathes, it’s alive with becoming and moves with my energy, listens and holds only what I’ve impressed upon it,” he explained. “It remembers and let’s go in the fire then becomes stronger. If clay was a song it would sing of the layers of life really, it’s the creators deepest perhaps.”
