Milan 2011: Swedish designers TAF have created this polypropylene light in a hand knitted net for Swedish design brand Zero.

The lights, called Fisherman, are based on old fashioned glass fishing floats.

The nets are individually hand knitted in Hönö on the west coast of Sweden.

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Photographs are by Jonas Lindström.

The following is from the designers.

Fisherman

“Glass fishing floats were once used by fishermen in many parts of the world to keep their nets afloat. (…) Many of them are still afloat in the world's oceans, primarily the Pacific. Norway was the first country to start production and use of glass fishing floats around 1840, and they can still be found in local boathouses. Christopher Faye, a Norwegian merchant from Bergen, is credited for their invention. By the 1940s, glass had replaced wood or cork. Later the floats have been replaced by aluminum, plastic, or Styrofoam.” (Wikipedia)

Like fishermen's glass floats, the lamp has also transferred to contemporary materials. And as a useful fishing tool has transformed into a romanticized, nigh-kitsch item used in fish restaurants, it is also time to move lamps into a new positive context. When placed indoors, with increased size and a new function as a lamp, we still recognize it, but look at it in a new way.

Rope-making is now a very rare handicraft in Sweden and it has been extremely hard to find the knowledge on how to knit this kind of round net structure. Finally, a small company, located at Hönö on the Swedish west coast, specialized in making rope- and net applications for the fishing industry, managed to do it. Each net is hand knitted using the simplest tools imaginable.

Object: Pendant- and wall lamp
Client: ZERO
Dimensions: Diameter 400 mm and 650 mm
Material: Polypropylene and Polyethylene
Light Source: 18W/Gx24q, Incandescent bulb
Design: Mattias Ståhlbom
Photo: Jonas Lindström
Date: 2011

See also:

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Rubber by TAF	Stitch lamp by TAF	Bottle by TAF