Supertoys Supertoys
StudioZAND

Supertoys Supertoys is a Dutch-German art duo based in Rotterdam creating limited-edition collectibles, art furniture and light sculptures. The duo is renowned for their extravagant, playful and joyous objects inspired by a dreamy, speculative approach linked to a child-like imagination, skillfully harnessing a variety of digital design and production methods. The result sees surprising objects which almost seem otherworldly yet, at the same time, strangely familiar, with a style the designers term "radical cuteness". The two designers, Merle Flügge and Job Mouwen, work between the digital and the physical worlds. They explore concepts of metamorphosis and hybridization of objects, turning for inspiration to the works of artists and designers of the Italian Radical Design movement of the 1960s and Takashi Murakami’s Superflat art theory, among others. Their design process uses virtual reality to hand-sculpt objects. In imagining the worlds that lie beyond our own, they do not make a distinction between digital and physical space, nor between imagination and reality, because in their way of seeing things, everything is connected. They invent objects whose expressive auras have their own, gentle personalities, objects to care for and with which a sentimental bond can be formed. Their perspective is "on the side of the object": they try to imagine what forms, colours and materials can express the object’s personality in the best possible way.

StudioZAND is a Dutch duo of designers and artisans based in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, consisting of Frans Ottink and Erna Huppelschoten. Their focus is on making tableware and objects such as vases and jewellery in porcelain and silver as well as bringing the designs of fellow artists into reality. Their work covers the production process as a whole, from making the model and mould to the finished result. Their philosophy is inspired by the desire to create beautiful things that stand the test of time, a factor they view as a form of sustainability. They endeavour to generate as little waste and consumption as possible in the production process. The raw porcelain is always reused, and in 2018 they developed an innovative method for recycling porcelain fired at a high temperature.