INTERVIEW: ANNY WANG
Swedish designer Anny Wang is just out of school. Her work screams out a beautiful and clean, yet refreshingly wierd aesthetic that instantly draws you in and makes you look at furniture, illustration and creativity in a new way.
It can be hard defining yourself within the creative field, when your work is motivated by ideas, concepts and an indefinable urge for creating rather than a focus on the media itself. For Anny Wang it’s much more important to explore different fields, and to do this thoroughly, than to establish the perfect commercial portfolio. Even though she’s only 23 and recently a bachelor graduate, she jumps in to quite different and comprehensive projects with what seems to be a natural curiosity and a continuous desire to learn. That is highly admirable. Anny’s work is not quite like anything else we’ve seen. She seems to have a borderless approach to working with visual expression and that gives her a unique style. At the same time she has an amazing talent for utilizing and experimenting with the third dimension both in spatial objects and illustration. After this summer she starts an internship at the Copenhagen-based architectural studio David Thulstrup and it’s going to be interesting to see where her talent might take her.
Anny Wang.
Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Anny Wang, I’m 23 years old, and I’ve just graduated from HDK, School of Design and Crafts in Gothenburg.
I am currently working on my own projects and I am soon to start an internship at an architect and design studio in Copenhagen.
Where do you come from and what made you choose your current path?
I am from a small town in Sweden and during elementary school I studied Fine Art and Design. It was during those years that I started imagining myself working with colors and shapes as an answer to “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. Over time my interest towards design and interior design became greater. I followed my instinct and studied Interior design for a year at a preparatory school. That really helped me sharpening my creative tools and goals. I got in to HDK and three years later; here I am.
Can you tell us about your working process?
I think I’m a person who define myself as a do-er. Partly because of my lack of patience, I want to do it fast so I can start see it and analyse it. Also because I easily get stuck with my own thoughts and are making things really unclear. Therefore my design process is usually relativily short during the sketching phase. I like to have a lot of time making the result as perfect as it can be. It often starts out with a traditional paper and pen, then the computer along with model making. I like to work with combining three dimensional with two dimensional, and also merge different techniques.
Do you have a project that you are especially proud of?
My BA thesis project. This is the most recent project and what I have ever devoted myself the most to. Akin Collection is a furniture collection that highlights the importance in contrasts. How contrasts can complement and accentuate features.
The ambition with the design is to attract interaction and through the experience of the collection contribute to a broader view of what relationships between objects might be. The collection has three members, Float shelf, Sway Cabinet and Orbit side table.
To be able to build three full-scale furniture prototypes by myself and complete a whole project from idea to result in a time that was extremely limited really made me proud of the result and the project as a whole. I learned a lot during the project.
What are your biggest sources of inspiration/influence at the moment?
The mesmerizing effect shiny things have to people. I easily get trapped staring at sparkling water a bit too long. I have a fondness for the shiny appearance and as you can see I like to incorporate glossy things in my work. At the moment I also get my inspiration from colourful experimental composite materials, my 90’s childhood and of course through discussions with other creatives.
Where do you place yourself in the field of art and design?
I’ve always had trouble with this. I of course want to be everything.. But now a days I use the terms Spatial and Furniture Design and Visual Art. I know that Interior Design is a more common word in the vernacular but I have slightly problems with the word ‘interior’. People tend to think that I only work with puffing pillows and adding fresh flowers in a vase. Which is not the case.
What are you working on at the moment?
I’m currently working on a collaboration with graphic designer, fashion designer and artist, Dom Sebastian from Central Saint Martins (University of the arts, London). We are just starting off with a project of making a small clothing collection together. Focusing on digital prints. We want to merge my techniques in 3D software with his graphic patterns. The project is very fresh and hasn’t established any tangible theme yet.
Also I’m in the middle of another collab. This time with Tim Söderström a musician and architect. We are working on a more exploring project about sound and space. How sound form space. This project has no goal of achieving any visual results. But we are very open about how the project takes it turns. We are currently collecting material and processing it (recording sounds, analyze space and soundscapes, making 3D-models.) This project also ends in the beginning of September.
What are your hopes and dreams for the future?
To have a nice work studio of my own, a solid place in the world in where I have all the necessary tools I need to be limitless.
What would your advice for other creatives be?
Just go for it also don’t be afraid to try new stuff.
Works by Anny Wang.
Rikke Luna (f. 1988) og Matias B. Albæk (f. 1988) er stiftere af idoart.dk, og driver derudover formidlingsbureauet I DO ART Agency samt I DO ART Books.
