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‘I never want to contribute to landfill’ says emerging furniture designer and maker Joanne Odisho.
‘As designers, we have a responsibility to work with the materials around us, especially those destined for waste. There’s so much beauty and potential in rethinking what materials can be.’
This ethos is one of the driving forces behind her innovative lighting pieces, which are primarily crafted using bio-composite materials that she began developing during her studies at RMIT a few years ago.
After completing a course in interior design, Joanne realised her real fascination was not with deigning the space itself, but more with the objects in the space. She decided to take this interest further with a degree in furniture design and manufacturing.
‘We were encouraged to experiment with waste and recycled materials,’ Joanne says of the hands-on workshop classes.
‘Around the same time [I started making furniture], I was working as an interior designer at a local builder and noticed bags of paper shavings being thrown out. I started taking them home and experimenting with paper pulp.’
This material — made by soaked paper that is blended, then mixed with wood shavings, corn flour, and adhesive to form a clay-like paste — was a key component of her first-ever piece, the Summit Stool.
Now, working full-time as a designer, Joanne employs these considered techniques to create unique pieces from the home studio set up in her family’s garage.
Her ethereal Lume Lamp takes several days of hand-sanding, and several weeks to refine. Topped with a shade made from torn and sculpted unryu paper that glows softly from within almost like something from a sci-fi movie, this delicate lamp also recently won Joanne the design award in the Northern Beaches Environmental Art & Design Prize.
Equally impressive are the petal-like shades of the Bloom Lamps. Believe it or not, these are crafted from old eggshells that are blended into a fine powder, mixed with natural binders, and moulded into shape.
‘Nature, architecture, and my Assyrian heritage are at the heart of what inspires me,’ Joanne says, acknowledging personal storytelling as an important part of her practice.
Take for example her mid-century inspired modular sofa collaboration with Australian-made furniture brand Knotte, which debuted at Melbourne Design Week after almost two years of work.
‘The design is named Alma, after my grandmother, Almas,’ Joanne adds. ‘The collection invites comfort, reminiscent of the familiar contours of well-worn, welcoming seating that has hosted generations of conversations and connections.’
Because in addition to her boundary-pushing processes, it’s Joanne’s unique point of view that really makes her designs stand out. And we can’t wait to see what she does next!
