For a fibre that, somewhat surprisingly, represents only one per cent of the global textile market at this point, wool resides strongly in our cultural and human imagination. 'This is not an exhibition in praise of wool however,' explains Simone Farresin, one half of Italian design duo Formafantasma, as the pair show us around their latest exhibition, Oltre Terra (subtitle: Why Wool Matters), commissioned by Oslo’s National Museum (on view until 1 October 2023).
'It's rather a way of looking at the relationship that we have with making and producing wool, and most of all, the ethical implications of dealing with living creatures when doing so.' And it is this multi-disciplinary, multi-layered and, one might say, a multi-species approach where 'it’s never only about humans,' that the design studio first adopted so successfully in Cambio (a show dedicated to the timber industry, first hosted at the Serpentine Galleries in 2021), that is being revisited here. Although it is taken one step further, believes Farresin. 'I think there is an attempt here to put into question also exhibition-making and the kind of ideas you can create, even just when pairing materials visually. I think in this sense this exhibition is saying more things.'
