The work of Daniera ter Haar & Christoph Brach, who have become better known by the name of one of their projects, Raw Color, is highly prismatic, covering the spectrum between art, design, photography and color research by mixing the powerful colors of vegetables, innovative color harvesting processes, with unique applications for print and textiles. Each project is created with an astute design sense and captured with stunningly composed photography.
The Eindhoven, Netherlands based team uses color as the ‘connection between their different practices’ posing questions like, ‘what is the nature of a color and what is the connection to its physical state?’ This post focuses on their use of photography. In a pervious post we covered their research on vegetable pigments, and we will cover their design work in an upcoming post.
Stuffed – Peep
This photo series is playing with the perception of stuffed birds. The written word is a reference to the former voice signature of each bird, the peeping. In Ornithology (the study of birds) this is specified by each bird species. These animals being exposed to the camera are now nothing more than an image of themselves, they are no longer flying or whistling. Via a mix of colours, letters and birds evolves an image from universal language. Our starting point was the historical collection stuffed animals from MEC in Eindhoven. ‘Peep’ is presented at the exhibition ‘Stuffed’ during the Dutch Design Week 2008, were all the participating designers are inspired from the stuffed animals, translated into their own designs. After this exhibition ‘Stuffed’ went on tour and was on show at Salone del Mobile, Milano 2009 and at the NAI, Maastricht 2009.
Photos for Sight Unseen
A still life series that tries to capture the characteristics and associations of certain color shades. For example, reddish is represented as tensed, explosive and dynamic, skin shades are shown by softness and purity. The objects used are a part of our inspiration archive that is permanently growing through the years. We created the images for the New York based online design magazine Sight Unseen. After their studio visit and a long chat with Jill and Monica, we decided to make a photoseries that visualises our approach and fascination about colours, materials and their character.
we decided to make a photoseries that visualises our approach and fascination about colours, materials and their character.
This is Basic
Planes, shadows, hues and reflections are subject of this research. For this study we chose paper because this material had all the appropriate qualities we were looking for. Paper is both flexible and stiff , it has colour, structure, it reflects and absorbs light. Besides that, it is one of the most natural materials you can work with. By means of folding and cutting, two-dimensional sheets are transformed into three-dimensional shapes that form abstract images and shaded illusions.
Part of the ‘This is Basic’ photoseries, the focus is on the structure and spatiality of paper by means of shadow, reflection, lines and color arising as abstract images. Through exposure color gradienst and reflections which normally stay unnoticed appear. Paper doesn’t look like paper anymore. The photos were exhibited at the exhibition Lift Off, during the Dutch Design Week 2008. Curated by Freek Lomme / Onomatopee and Dave Keune
Through exposure, color gradients and reflections which normally stay unnoticed appear.
Invertuals 2
Invertuals is a photo series created for the group Dutch Invertuals. All the participants are covered up with big foam volumes. Through the characteristics of the material; the stiffness, volumes, mat structures and the usage of their minty colours, we created these statues.
Flow – Kleurenwaaier
“Flow” was a group exhibition during Dutch Design Week 2010, created by a group of independent designers. As part of the organization putting on the exhibition it was our job was to design all the communication materials. Flow was about movement, transformation and change. We were searching for an image giving the suggestion of motion and covering the nature of the exposed pieces. In the end we added colour-charts (Kleurenwaaiers in dutch) on a drilling machine and photographed the turning movement with a long exposure time, creating a colour movement in the shape of rings, turning round and round. The contrast of the solid machine with transparent rings, blended the two worlds in one object. A series of different colour-rings on drilling machines, were used for posters and flyers.
We attached colour-charts to a drill and photographed the movement with a long exposure, creating colour movement in the shape of rings.
