New York design collective Colony has put on an exhibition of tapestries and home products at its space in Tribeca, which was painted dark blue for the occasion, during the NYCxDesign festival.

The Balance Unbalanced installation features a range of furniture, textiles, lighting and objects made by 17 American designers.

All of the pieces take design cues from the concept of balance, or lack thereof, with examples including a topsy-turvy upholstered chair and textiles with swooped threads.

"For this year's exhibit we wanted to explore not just the positive, light, or balanced side of design, but also the struggle to find balance, both in our work and in our personal lives," said Jean Lin, who founded Colony in 2014 as a community of independent designers in New York City.

On display are works from designers such as Allied Maker, Fort Standard, Hiroko Takeda, Studio Paolo Ferrari and Vonnegut/Kraft.

"The show theme manifests itself as an illustrative process of designers and makers finding balance in form, colour, scale and material," said a statement from Colony.

The items represent each designer's meditation on the meaning of balance, from both a philosophical and an aesthetic perspective.

"This year's theme, the exhibit design and the work on show are complex, nuanced and a bit somber," Lin told Dezeen.

Highlights from the exhibition are Takeda's series of tapestries with colourful swooped designs of cotton and bamboo and Studio Paolo Ferrari's off-kilter wool-upholstered chair with walnut and plated steel.

"Perfect balance is a lie, but magic can be found in the space between balance and the unbalanced," said Lin.

Vonnegut/Kraft is presenting a set of low tables, designed with grated wooden panels inserted atop stainless pillars.

A selection of quilted cotton tapestries by Meg Callahan hang on the walls, and are characterised by their geometric patterns with a subtle colour palette.

Other smaller pieces in the showroom include tubular vases coloured dusty red and lavender by Earnest Studio, and an umbrella holder with a light wood base by Hollis + Morris.

The back of the space is anchored by a black square-topped coffee table with a hollow centre by Erickson Aesthetics, with other round, stone side tables designed by Fort Standard.

The exhibit is on display at Colony's showroom at 324 Canal Street from 17 to 24 May 2018. It coincides with this year's NYCxDesign festival, running 11-23 May 2018.

For the event last year, the collective's exhibition was titled Lightness and themed in reaction to the country's political climate at the time.

Photography is by Alan Tansey.