The Wunderkammer of "cabinet of curiosities" was a sort of chaotic jumble of objects, mainly unconnected and unrelated one to the other, some of them – such as unicorns’ horns and mermaids' skeletons – fraudulent in characters.
Emblem of early modern curiosity and wonder, the Wunderkammer was indeed a place where naturalia and artificialia met, cabinets that preserved strange and wonderful objects, and that quite often turned into theatrical stages for the rare, the bizarre and the magic.
The Wunderkammer is also the inspiration behind the second edition of "Moments in Design" currently on at the DesignCafé at the Triennale di Milano.
This event is the result of a collaboration between Danish jewellery brand Pandora and fifteen students from the Fashion and Textile Design course at NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti).
Led by their lecturer, Italian designer Cinzia Ruggeri, the students reinterpreted the theme in clever ways: some explored fairy tale worlds and childhood memories, others the power of preserving a special moment imbued with nostalgia.
All the students managed through their projects to subvert the aim and objective of the Pandora pieces and charms.
Quite often they decontextualised them, using the precious elements as parts of a symbolic boardgame, or for decorative purposes on designs directly linked to their countries of origins, like an Indian elephant in full festival attire.
Other students proved a piece of jewellery can be turned into a structural piece for an architectural model, can be incorporated in a Proust-inspired installation, or more simply used as embellishment in headdresses tackling the sense Vs sensibility dichotomy.
The original pseudo-scientific theme of the Wunderkammer was explored in a headpiece resembling a brain in which beads and trinkets hint at the accumulation of memories, but also in a Tim Burton-inspired skeleton of dinosaur.
In each piece there is a sense of wonder and enchantment with a healthy dose of irony added.
As a whole you get the feeling that this project was definitely not about a kitsch cabinet of wonders, but it was more a laboratory of ideas in which the students worked with different materials as best as they could.
"It was a satisfying project," Cinzia Ruggeri told Irenebrination. "It was a bit like finding yourself immersed in the dark, but peering through a keyhole to a different world."
Visitors of the "Moments in Design" event will be able to support their favourite student project and vote for it at this link - the winning student will scoop a period of training in the creative department of the Pandora company.
"Moments in Design" is at the DesignCafé, Triennale di Milano, Via Alemagna 6, Milan, Italy, until 29th May.
Image credits for this post
All images Courtesy of Pandora/NABA
Student projects (as they appear in this post):
1. Guneet Cheema
2. Victoria Prokhorova
3. Anna Benaglia
4. Sergio Chiodin
5. Francesco De Carli
6. Tolika Assumi
7. Mariya Ruseva Doncheva
8. Benedetta Giorcelli
9. Luisa Alpeggiani
10. Chiara Baratello + Cecilia Baroni
11. Micol Ottina
12. Natalia Razbrodina
13. Giulia Dean
14. Mariya Zaykova
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