Rümeysa Memiş
Each Travelling in an Orbit 21:33
Summary
This practice-based research project focuses on designing a new visual narrative feeding from traditional Turkish ornaments with an interdisciplinary focus to furniture. As being a female Turkish designer, I care to push the limits of traditional manufacturing to seek care and value in furniture design. The installation piece acts both as a sculpture and a sample library to share the richness of V&A's Turkish archive. It invites viewers to get in interact with the neglected design histories of Turkish women-makers. My sample archive acts as a resistant gesture while turning itself into a poetic form of design. A silent, subtle storyteller calling us to listen, to change our stance towards the Others.
Additional info
Rümeysa Memiş is a furniture designer born and raised in Istanbul, Türkiye. Her work interprets traditional ways of making, connecting the accustomed with the unexpected or, practical with poetic. Instead of oftenly studied artistic skills, she aims to revive neglected women-made crafts for contemporary furniture practice. She believes furniture needs to be seen as a spiritual tool beyond providing a structural function. Although spiritual needs are not adequately discussed in a design practice in today’s understanding, she would like to offer spirituality in furniture design today by inviting us to listen to the stories of textile makers. It is a way of engaging with the past in order to impact the present and the future histories. While being between London and Istanbul, her design research connects different perceptions into a more cumulative understanding of furniture design. The MRes project Each Travelling in an Orbit 21:33 is an ongoing research project upgrading to Design PhD program at the RCA.
Exhibited in MRes RCA 2024 Research Journeys, 26 July 2024 to 1 August 2024, Curated by David Evans, Jonathan Miles & Esther Teichmann in dialogue with MRes RCA students, The Hangar Gallery, Royal College of Art, London. Photography: Joshua Siebert
Photography: Joshua Siebert
Photography: Joshua Siebert
Photography: Joshua Siebert
Photography: Joshua Siebert
Photography: Joshua Siebert
Installation piece representing the architectural history in relation to women-made textile heritage. Photography: R. Memiş
Photography: R. Memiş
Photography: Joshua Siebert
a transparent, hybrid and transformative invitation to listen to Others’ expertise in craft making
Each Travelling in an Orbit 21:33 reflects on a transitional and bonding state to focus on the experience of craft-making as a research process and visualises that transition as a shaded installation. This methodology could be described as a focus on the state of journey resembling the endless diversity of the created phenomena and their contrast within the unity and uniqueness of the Creator (Esed, 1980). The practical experiments offer formal exploratory research emanating from hands-on craft-making that includes technological/digital innovations. This opens the possibility to design a contemporary way of thinking whilst inviting us to interact with the past. Personally, I also wished to honour Turkish women’s expertise on textile making and eventually interior/furniture design being a female Turkish designer myself. Through the lens of a female Turkish designer, I created a sample library which acts as an artwork to illuminate the importance of the research journey by bringing indigenous materials and making processes upfront.
