Emily Brass

The source of inspiration for Emily is a work by the artist Andreas Gursky. In his series »James Bond Islands« he shows a digitally arranged group of islands in Thailand that seem to float in the ocean, although they are in fact only the tips of mountains, of course.

The shape of these islands is quite heterogenic, however all of them form a family which is connected through their organic, in a way pyramidal shape. Through a distance the ocean seems to be a perfectly flat surface that »cuts« these shapes on the bottom.

The idea was to lift these islands out of the ocean, creating lampshades that float in a space/room. If they would hang on the same height it should be possible to create the vague impression of a mountain landscape that loses touch to the ground.

​There was no other option to realise that idea than building these shapes out of metal, an obvious choice for pendant lamps with a long tradition due to its solidity and the beautiful aging qualities. This turned out to be a difficult task to realize in small scale as one usually needs large and very expensive pressing or deep drawing tools to manufacture such shapes.

The solution was to look deeper into the manufacturing of free from metal parts in the way the car industry produced 70-100 years ago. In the end, the metal shades are cut, bent, formed, welded and sanded by hand in a complex process to build those natural, organic shapes.