With project “Mayfly,” the young designers Anton Defant and Benjamin Nagy examine the functional potentials of discarded materials. The life cycles of the improvised “functional collages” of the Mayfly sculptures begin where objects and components have lost their original function and have returned to being material: in the waste container. Thus, drain covers transform into a shelf, a former server rack into a chair, or a former sideboard and neon lights become a flood light.

There is no planning ahead when it comes to “Mayfly,” the objects are purely defined by the elements and materials currently available. The salvaged components are re-designed using as few tools as possible and without radically changing the material. As only the means available on site are used, the designers let themselves be led by the principle of improvisation.

This approach allows them to process the discovered material quickly, autonomously, and independently and gives the objects a playful immediacy. The exhibition display draws on the metaphor of a sandbox as a place to play and experiment: Here too, material takes on form and is destroyed again, while always remaining in the cycle.

Curator: Marlies Wirth, Curator Digital Culture and MAK Design Collection