How has the relationship between mankind and the
environment changed over the millennia?
What is distinctive of the interaction between
modern-day humans and the space they occupy compared to that of the planet's
first inhabitants and the nature that surrounded them?
Investigate
the relationship between humans and their environment, question the concept of
what is original. This is the spark that Lapo Ciatti – CEO and Art
Director of Opinion Ciatti – and the designer Marcantonio set
out from when, even before the project began, they started to imagine the
universe of Atavica, the “capsule collection” that Opinion Ciatti
presented in the 2019 Salone del Mobile.
A collection made of the Cielo and Terra carpets , Primasedia chair, Selce mirror and Ramo coat stand that share a powerful aim: to be the expression 2.0 of ancient materials and symbols.
<< With
Atavica we wanted to recall primitive materials and objects and reinterpret
them artistically. – says Marcantonio, the collection's designer – For
me, materials like wood, stone and metal are “magical” because they have the
ability to transform themselves into anything at all, while keeping intact
their strong primeval power and their evocative identity.>>
Atavica is therefore a collection “thought of in objects”
that have remained to bear witness to the history, techniques and materials
used to realise them and have crossed the millennia to become symbols of a
world where to make anything it was necessary to use the few things available.
Selce - mirror
design Marcantonio
Ramo - clothes hangers
design Marcantonio
Primasedia - stackable chair
design Marcantonio
That faced by Lapo Ciatti and Marcantonio has been an anthropological and cultural research that starts in the stone age and comes up to our days; it originates and is inspired by a bone - quite possibly the first tool used by humans - and bursts into the technological devices without which, today, we are unable to survive.
<< In a time in history that disorients, in which we are bombarded by thousands of models that are more or less superficial – explains Marcantonio - for me it has become necessary to delve into the roots of the concepts of identity, to research that which is “original”, of what is “atavically" connected to our being “humans”. Although we tend to not feel that we are part of it, humans are nature, so going back to nature - understood as belonging - is a duty even before it is a need. I worked very well with Lapo [Ciatti] because we share the qualities of enthusiasm and curiosity. We both strongly felt the desire to go and build objects, to give a shape to the idea that underlies our collection >>
