Gengxue Zheng - UK
Gengxue Zheng
Designer biography:
Gengxue Zheng uses contour maps to represent heights by circles, topography by changes in sparsity, and three-dimensional space on a two-dimensional plane by distorting lines and using the sparsity of the lines. He makes jewellery and objects with a sense of volume like sculpture by stacking geometric shapes. He also enjoys the process of making things out of metal, for example, when forging, seeing the metal slowly extend during the pounding process gives him a sense of peace. For the object, he was inspired by contour maps to create this collapsible bowl. He believes that the interaction with the user will in turn bring some meaning to this object.
Collection concept:
The collection is inspired by the International Flat Earth Society, which argues that the Earth is flat. This seemingly absurd conjecture, if you pull the timeline back to ancient times, is a question about the shape of the Earth that has plagued mankind for thousands of years. The human perception of the shape of the earth is a long and interesting process. From the conjecture of the ancient Babylonians to Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe in 1519 which proved that the Earth is round, mankind has come to the conclusion that the Earth is a sphere today through continuous overturning of conjectures and verifications, and perhaps one day in the future, we will find new evidence and conclude that the Earth is again a flat surface. Gengxue uses a two-dimensional method to prove the various conjectures people have made about the “flat Earth”. By extracting elements of contour maps, it explores how to use lines on a two-dimensional plane to create a three-dimensional visual effect.
