Iggesund unveils Black Box #7

- Design inspired by migration and urbanization  

 

Fiber-based material specialist Iggesund has unveiled the latest entry in its Black Box Project series, which uses portraits of a dozen metropolises from around the world to ask whether cultures in “megacities” like London and Tokyo have more in common with each other than with their national contexts.

 

The Black Box Project has been organized by Iggesund for two years, and sees it challenge a number of well-known international designers and design companies to fill a black box of a specified format with contents that in some way test the limits of Iggesund's Invercote paperboard.

 

The seventh and latest entry to the series has been designed by photographer and filmmaker Jens Assur, and uses portraits printed on Invercote to question if metropolises create cultures that stretch far beyond national borders and language barriers.

 

A hundred years ago the world had only one city with more than a million inhabitants – London. Today there are more than a hundred such cities and 25 metropolises with over 10 million inhabitants.

 

The migration and urbanisation behind this growth formed the starting point for Assur’s contribution to the Black Box Project.

 

His design was unveiled at the Flacon Design Factory in Moscow on December 6. Previous Black Box Project exhibitions have taken place in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Milan and New York.

 

Some 30 photographic portraits are used in the design, and were divided up into smaller tiles and then randomly distributed among the black boxes. Box owners can create their own individual metropolis with the tiles. Anyone wishing to exchange tiles can do so via a dedicated website: www.blackbox.iggesund.com/trade.

 

Assur said: ‘Do the inhabitants of Tokyo have more in common with those of London, New York and Stockholm than with people living in rural Japan? Do metropolises create cultures that stretch far beyond national borders and language barriers?’

 

Carlo Einarsson, director of market communications at Iggesund Paperboard, said of the Black Box Project: ‘We’re looking for creative individuals who really push the limits of what can be done with Invercote.

 

‘But the project is also a tribute to all the designers who have chosen over the years to make fantastic creations using Invercote as their starting point. We’re especially gratified by the great interest our exhibitions have received from designers and the graphic industry in many parts of the world.

 

‘The degree of freedom combined with the opportunity to create something extraordinary has made it easy to find interested participants. A number of designers have contacted us and asked to be part of the project. We’re very satisfied with the response so far, both to our exhibitions and to our web pages about the project.

 

‘In a world where the choice of materials is unfortunately often a matter of habit, it’s important for us to showcase the extra possibilities which Invercote offers designers to fully realise their creative ambitions.’

 

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