Neri Oxman is one of the strangest figures in the contemporary design world. She is not easy to categorize, she does not design chairs or lamps, but structures that we only see in sci-fi movies. Her designs seem to be alive, at first glance they may be shocking, some of them have an effect that evokes admiration and disgust at the same time, but one thing is certain: we do not pass by them without saying a word, they certainly induce some kind of emotion in the viewer. This is also her goal, which is probably why she chose this language for herself.
The designer was born in Haifa in 1976, to parents who were both architects, and her sister later became an artist. After high school, she immediately began her military service, which is mandatory for women in Israel, where she eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant. After being discharged, she began her studies at the Hebrew University's Faculty of Health Sciences, but after two years she transferred to the Faculty of Architecture at the Technical University. She graduated in London in 2004, and immediately after that she started doctoral school in Massachusetts, which she graduated in 2010, immediately winning a design award.
In 2006, he began research at the university in the field of material ecology, and stayed there after his doctorate, but now he also teaches, creating his own interdisciplinary group in addition to his research work. His interests focus on parametric and contextual design – and of course the engineering technologies, knowledge of which is essential for these designs to be realized.
Design from another world
These are the words of renowned curator Andrew Bolton, head of the textile department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, who described Oxman's work. Oxman not only has architectural projects, he has also designed a mask for Björk's performance, but also collaborated with fashion designer Iris van Herpen, famous for her so-called fractal patterns, on a 3D-printed collection.
Oxman is one of the few who not only finds joy in seeing their work come to fruition. It is perhaps not an exaggeration to call him a design theorist, not least because he approaches so-called organic design in a completely different way than his colleagues whose work we usually associate with this label. His passion for biology and computer science is evident, and this curiosity drives him to constantly experiment.
In 2016, he was part of the team that launched the Journal of Design Science, a professional journal that rejects the academic, standard approach to design and architecture. Indeed, this philosophy is not easy to understand, and it does not offer simple answers like a simple piece of furniture or home decoration accessory. His 2015 TED Talk has over 2.5 million views, and in 2019, his work was featured in the second season of the Netflix documentary series Abstract: The Art of Design, but his teachings have not yet gained wider popularity.
Neri Oxman's work is always surprising
His desire to amaze has accompanied him throughout his career, for example when he uses animals to create structures. One of his most famous works is the 2013 Silk Pavilion, a nylon-based dome woven by 6,500 silkworms. Here, he primarily investigated the texture that animals create - which is why he did not allow all the individuals onto the structure at once. He repeated the experiment in 2020, Silk Pavilion II. exhibited at MoMa. In 2015, he embarked on a similar project, but with bees (Synthetic Apiary), curious about how beehives are built in interaction with different structural forms. His more famous work is the Imaginary Beings “clothing accessory” collection, which was inspired by the world of legendary creatures. Among the many projects, it is important to highlight the G3DP, which is the first 3D printer capable of producing transparent glass, with which glass objects called Glass I and Glass II were produced. Surprise, these are not available in stores either!
