Nika Zupanc: I prefer to live unusually
Who she is: a Slovenian furniture and product designer who loves breaking convention. Nika Zupanc's collections are unusual, sometimes provocative and macabre, then again petite and feminine. Their products are aimed at both adults and children. Your talent has already discovered well-known European design brands such as Gorenje, Moooi and Moroso? and commissioned Nika Zupanc with the design of some high quality products. Nika Zupanc lives and works in Ljubljana.
How she came to design: On the classic way. Nika Zupanc studied industrial design at the "Academy of Arts and Design" in Ljubljana. After graduating in 2000, for which she won a university award, the now 37-year-old became self-employed, designing furniture and home accessories. In 2004, Nika Zupanc was named by the British Council as the most promising young talent in Eastern Europe. A year later, she was one of the finalists of the international design award IYDEY. Since then, Nika Zupanc has traveled the world, showing her collections in London, Hong Kong, Glasgow and? as last? at the prestigious furniture fair in Milan. About the design she says: "It has always been my great love, my biggest challenge".
What inspires her: The big and the little things. These can be everyday occurrences, fleeting thoughts, profound memories. Her friends and family inspire her. But also social taboos, political events or literary portrayals of women like Mrs. Dalloway, to whom she has dedicated her own product. "But the greatest inspiration," Nika Zupanc tells us, "is within ourselves. We just have to find it again in the material world that surrounds us."
What their collections mean: Nika Zupanc is sure that furniture and accessories are never just decoration. Instead, she firmly believes in a specific message, a political statement. She consciously plays with typical female role models and gives them a new meaning: a feather duster turns into an elegant, feathered designer piece; a golden, elegant pocket mirror serves as a template for a stove top. Nika Zupanc herself describes her design as eclectic: she combines well-tried elements into a new whole.
What she considers equality: Very much. The title of her exhibition 2009 "I want to buy flowers myself"? I will buy my own flowers, that shows, for example. "I am very emancipated and very liberal," Nika Zupanc says about herself. She believes in equality between the sexes, not only in the job, but above all within the family. Her collections have a light feminine touch - a conscious statement against the still very masculine furniture design.
Photoshow: Designer Nika Zupanc and her furniture
What she is proud of: On their origin. Nika Zupanc was born and raised in Slovenia, today lives in the capital Ljubljana. Her childhood was happy, she tells us, women were treated differently in Slovenia than men. And yet it is precisely the Eastern European past that has shaped her and that she now wants to include in her international designs. Your creative strength, your political inspiration? All this, thanks to their homeland, tells us Nika. "The West, with its ever-striving political correctness, seems almost boring," she says.
Which of her products she loves the most: The playful Lolita lamp that she created for the Dutch design brand Moooi in 2008? and who still has a very special place in her home today.
What else is she: An observer. Nika Zupanc loves the simple life. The sublime grace of nature, the foreign beauty of big cities around the world. "Maybe," she says modestly, "I'm more of an observer than a designer."
More information about Nika Zupanc can be found at www.nikazupanc.com.
