Good Fortune Carafes at Gallery Libby Sellers
The environmental dangers facing our planet’s waterways are becoming increasingly alarming, making us realise and appreciate how lucky we are to have water.
A new exhibition by German designer Mark Braun will highlight these threats through water carafes engraved with images of lakes, rivers and glaciers from across the globe.
The Fortune exhibition, which opens next week at Gallery Libby Sellers, will feature 22 carafes handcrafted by the Austrian glass company J. & L. Lobmeyr, who used images from Google Earth Map in the process.
Putting the spotlight on the natural engravings rather than the luxurious features of the carafes, the exhibition moves away from the usual, monetary connotation of the word fortune. ‘It is enforcing the idea of how fortunate we are of water,’ says gallery owner Libby Sellers.
The show portrays water as a luxury. The carafes are a depiction of how fragile our essential resource for life has become due to climate change, pollution and an ever-growing world population.
Braun’s designs represent a frozen moment in this torrent of change. He says, ‘We all know that this water will be the new gold.’
The carafes on show include engravings of Lake Baikal in Russia, which has a connection to one of the largest freshwater sources; Lambert Glacier, the largest glacier in the Atlantic which is slowly melting; the River Euphrates, a vital lifeline for many Western Asian countries; and the River Thames, which played a key role in making London the prosperous city it is today.
Lobmeyr, who have a 200-year-old tradition of making handcrafted glass and crystal, needed almost six hours for some of the engravings.
A range of postcard images by graphic designer Anna Sartorius will accompany the series.
The exhibition runs from 14 December to 26 January 2012 at Gallery Libby Sellers, 41-42 Berners Street, W1T
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