Mar­sha Pearce

Mar­lon Dar­beau will ex­hib­it three de­sign projects at More Than Just a Place to Sit, which opens on De­cem­ber 11 in Bel­mont. Dar­beau is a de­sign­er and cre­ative di­rec­tor of Above­group Ogilvy, a full-ser­vice com­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny. He has spent the last few years broad­en­ing and deep­en­ing his cre­ative prac­tice, tran­scend­ing the bound­aries of im­age and text lay­outs for print pub­li­ca­tions to de­sign ob­jects made with wood, stain­less steel and alu­mini­um. Though a num­ber of the ob­jects in the show have been fea­tured on­line, Dar­beau says, "The ex­hib­it will al­low peo­ple to en­gage on a per­son­al lev­el with the ob­jects."

One of his de­sign projects, Peera, gives tan­gi­ble sig­nif­i­cance to the name of the ex­hi­bi­tion for it is a de­sign that lit­er­al­ly of­fers more than just a place to sit. Peera serves a dual pur­pose: as both bench and a ve­hi­cle for car­ry­ing tools or oth­er items. It is an imag­i­na­tive rein­ter­pre­ta­tion of a fa­mil­iar ob­ject. "The project start­ed out about mak­ing a bench. My dad had a work­shop in which he used a bench to paint the mail­box­es he made. I want­ed to in­ves­ti­gate how to trans­late that ob­ject. There is a gen­er­a­tion that knows the ob­ject but does not re­al­ly know it," says Dar­beau.

What is more com­mon­ly spelt as peer­ha or peer­ah is a small, low bench that re­mains a present but per­haps in­con­spic­u­ous part of our land­scape. The bench is used in a num­ber of con­texts in­clud­ing sit­ting and cook­ing by the fire­side. It can al­so be a fea­tured sit­ting place for the bride and groom in Hin­du wed­dings. "I want­ed to present Peera al­most as an ob­ject no one has seen be­fore. I want­ed to cre­ate a sur­prise. I want­ed to make the ob­ject per­sua­sive and de­sir­able. We con­sume so much of what is im­port­ed. Per­haps be­cause we think it's nicer. I asked: what does an ob­ject de­signed and made in Trinidad look like? Ear­ly feed­back from peo­ple in­clud­ed com­ments that Peera looked so fac­to­ry-made. We don't say that about a Nokia or a watch. I want to height­en what we ex­pect from what is de­signed and made here."

Along with the dou­ble-func­tion unit, the Peera project in­cludes two oth­er ob­jects: a love seat or what Dar­beau calls "a stretched Peera" and a sin­gle seat. Oth­er ob­jects to be ex­hib­it­ed are Dish Out, a set of sal­ad servers, and Out­in, a gar­den bench.

This is the first time all of the work will be dis­played in Trinidad. A Peera pro­to­type has been shown at the Glob­al Africa Project ex­hib­it at the Mu­se­um of Art and De­sign in New York and pre­lim­i­nary mod­els of Dish Out have been pre­sent­ed at the De­sign Caribbean trade fair in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic. Au­di­ences in Trinidad can ex­pect to see a res­o­lu­tion of Dar­beau's ideas in his pre­sen­ta­tion of fin­ished pieces.

Dar­beau's prod­ucts are brand­ed By Mak­ing. "It is brand and a phi­los­o­phy," says Dar­beau. "By Mak­ing talks about my process. De­sign is by mak­ing. Ideas on­ly come to tan­gi­ble form by the dif­fi­cult process of mak­ing," he adds.

­

Dar­beau ar­tic­u­lates the prac­tice of mak­ing as a means of think­ing and prob­lem solv­ing. It is in the do­ing, or mak­ing, that new cre­ative paths open up for ex­plo­ration and ideas can be re­solved. Dar­beau's sig­na­ture ap­pears next to his brand name. "That means they are one and the same. The work is an ex­ten­sion of me. I am giv­ing my­self to it," he ex­plains.

By putting him­self in­to his work, Dar­beau in­jects a hu­man di­men­sion in­to his de­signs. He cre­ates with peo­ple in mind, con­sid­er­ing how peo­ple ex­pe­ri­ence con­sumer prod­ucts. He be­lieves that this con­scious­ness of hu­man­i­ty is what makes each of his de­signs a work of art.

"I am a de­sign­er but there is an art to what I do. De­sign as a ser­vice mech­a­nism can lead to a con­scious­ness that does not con­sid­er peo­ple, so there is no art to the ob­ject. My ob­jec­tive might be to make some­thing avail­able but I hope that in mak­ing some­thing avail­able, peo­ple will see that a lot has been con­sid­ered," says Dar­beau.

It is his at­ten­tion to con­sid­er­ing how peo­ple will feel and in­ter­act with his de­signs that makes Mar­lon Dar­beau's bench­es more than just places to sit and his sal­ad servers more than just spoons.

More Than Just a Place to Sit opens on De­cem­ber 11 from 7 pm at Grander­son Lab, 24 Erthig Road, Bel­mont, and will run un­til De­cem­ber 15; gallery hours are Wednes­day to Fri­day noon-6 pm and Sat­ur­day 11 am-6 pm. • For more in­for­ma­tion about Mar­lon Dar­beau, vis­it by­mak­ing.com