London Design Festival 2014: Swedish designer Jomi Evers Solheim has created a collection of porcelain vases, using moulds formed around balloons that were filled with water.
The designer fills balloons with air and water, taking advantage of the natural elasticity of latex combined with the way gravity acts upon its contents.
He captures the momentary forms that are created through a casting process, and uses the resulting moulds to make a series of unique solid porcelain objects – the Elements collection.
"I wanted to work with water as a sculpting material and for that I needed some sort of elastic container," Solheim told Dezeen.
"The latex balloon was a perfect fit. The idea of working with water derives from an earlier project I did, working with snow as a sculpting material."
"The strength of the balloons is amazing, the thin layer of latex can withstand so much pressure and manipulation," he said.
"One of the nice things about the Elements project is that I know how the balloon shape looks before the moulding process, but I can’t predict the final result before slip-casting the porcelain. There has never been a physical original, just a transitory form, so it's really a magic moment when releasing the porcelain from the mould for the first time."
The porcelain is left unfinished – white and unglazed – on the outside. The designer believes this enhances the visual perception of the forms and heightens the tactile experience of the material.
"People from all kinds of background seem to enjoy them. I think when they are displayed as a family it makes them stronger as individual vessels," said Solheim.
"The response so far has really given me the energy to continue to develop the Elements collection in new directions. I want Elements to be a project with no final result - just new steps along the way."
Elements launched at the London Design Festival as part of the designjunction exhibition.