INHOUSE ECO-CUISINE 09/17/08

Words  ::  J. Lynn Fraser // Images  ::  Gaetan Robillard, Mathieu Lehanneur

Duende, Spanish, meaning "the universal motor that drives our being in the world and is the only aesthetic capable of mediating it." See also, "from the interior, to the body and on to movement, the duende is an ‘owner' who upsets furniture and unsettles habits."
Quirky and prescient designers Anthony van den Bossche and Mathieu Lehanneur of Duende are bent on being unsettling and challenging in their designs.
Together they established their firm Duende in 2007. The firm does press relations for a number of European design and architecture firms as well as artists. The studio section of the firm is an idea generator, product strategizer and launcher, in addition to curating exhibitions for European artists.
"We're not influenced by other designers. We are influenced by the next idea," van den Bossche states.
Van den Bossche, a self described "idea guy," "spin doctor" and designer, is fascinated by the symbiotic relationship between farmed fish and the vegetables grown in aquaponics farms. He was inspired by tilapia fish farms where lettuce is grown on floating trays that skim the surface waters of these fish farms.
Drawing on very minimalist design principles, and their slightly skewed view of the world, the design duo has created ‘Local River' bringing the concept of the 100 mile diet into the living room. "I discovered aquaponics while researching a previous exhibition I was curating," van den Bossche explains. "I offered Mathieu to do a project with this system."
‘Local River' is a clear glass ‘cube', which van den Bossche emphatically states "is not a table", filled with water designed to store fresh fish like trout, eels, perch, and carp. The designer was also inspired by the ‘locavores' movement that began in San Francisco in 2005.

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