Studio Swine: Crafting the Future from What Remains, a new exhibition at Seed130. Experience a captivating exhibition celebrating the visionary work of Studio Swine (Super Wide Interdisciplinary New Explorers). Crafting the Future From What Remains features four short films of remarkable projects that reimagine overlooked materials into compelling design and ideas.
Studio Swine was co-founded in 2011 by Japanese architect Azusa Murakami and British artist Alexander Groves. Formed to explore design through interdisciplinary and experimental approaches to making, their practice blends poetry, research, and sustainability into immersive sculptures, installations and films. The studio’s design philosophy centres on creatively repurposing what is locally available, drawing inspiration from the cultural, historical, and economic character of its surroundings. This exhibition features four remarkable projects that reimagine overlooked materials into compelling design and ideas.
This exhibition features four remarkable projects that reimagine overlooked materials into compelling design and ideas:
Sea Chair (2012) — At a time when plastic pollution in the ocean was becoming a global crisis, Studio Swine set sail with local fishermen to recover plastic debris at sea. Together, they melted and crafted these materials into sculptural stools onboard their boat. Sea Chair celebrates the ingenuity of small communities while reframing ocean plastic as a creative resource.
Can City (2013) — Transforming São Paulo’s informal economy into design innovation, Studio Swine constructed a mobile foundry powered by waste vegetable oil sourced from local cafés. Collecting aluminium cans with São Paulo’s waste pickers (Catadores), they melted them into raw material for casting handmade furniture. The resulting objects speak to a vibrant street culture of resilience and sustainability.
Hair Highway (2014) — Inspired by the ancient Silk Road and its exchange of materials and techniques, Hair Highway explores human hair as a renewable alternative to vanishing luxury materials. Studio Swine mixed hair with natural resins to craft surfaces mimicking tortoiseshell and lacquer, fusing traditional craft aesthetics from Qing Dynasty and Art Deco Shanghai into a forward-thinking design.
∞ (Infinity) Blue (2018) — Towering nearly 9 metres high, this monumental ceramic installation pays homage to the microscopic cyanobacteria that produces the oxygen we breathe. The intricate surface, glazed with local Cornish clay and modelled after reaction-diffusion patterns found in coral and zebra stripes, houses vortex cannons that emit mist rings scented by Givaudan, world leading fragrance company, with a scentscape evoking primordial Earth.
Each work invites visitors to look closely at our shared environment, the cycles of nature, and humanity’s potential to create beauty and meaning from overlooked materials. Together, they form a mesmerising and hopeful vision for a future built from the remnants of the past.
Futurecity x Studio Swine: A Creative Partnership Futurecity is proud to have collaborated with Studio Swine on three major public art commissions that redefine placemaking through design and material innovation:
Column — a graceful tribute to architecture and sustainability in the heart of London.
Infinity Blue — an awe-inspiring nine-metre-high sculpture inspired by Earth’s first oxygen-producing organisms at The Eden Project.
St James Market Bespoke Furniture — playful street furniture bringing color and character to London’s St James Market.
This partnership reflects Futurecity's commitment to commissioning artists who challenge materials and craft new futures for our public spaces.
Seed130
Seed130 is a new temporary gallery space developed as part of the meanwhile activation for 130 Fenchurch Street. Curated by Futurecity, it hosts a 10-month programme of exhibitions, talks and performances exploring sustainability, ESG, and future thinking. Seed130 is led by CO–RE for Aviva Investors, with a design team including WilkinsonEyre and Arup. Curated by Futurecity in collaboration with key partners Invisible Dust and Eastern City Business Improvement District.
www.seed130.co.uk IG: @_seed130