Vik Muniz
"It's as if we grow alongside the object. And, as the scale changes, its use also changes. It takes on an imaginary, conceptual form. The Arquétipos collection goes beyond utility. It’s an idea."
Manifesto
It may look like a toy, but it’s not. What suggests a handmade work, sewn with subtlety, challenges perception and material. In Arquétipos, a collection created by Vik Muniz for +55design, the artist translates, for the first time, his research on image and illusion into furniture.
Inspired by the universe of a sewing kit, the collection provokes a poetic reflection on memory, affection, and the stories that connect us to childhood. In this set, nothing is what it seems, yet every detail evokes the enchantment of the act of creating and transforming, so present in the imagery of sewing.
“My approach to furniture design starts with the conversation between material and concept, between physical experience and the intellectual construction of objects. Furniture are archetypes because they inhabit our memory and visual repertoire. A chair or a table are archetypes; you use them your whole life, you have a model in your head. Even before using them, we already recognize them on a symbolic and linguistic level. My work develops in this game between mind and matter, between consciousness and phenomenon,” explains the artist.
Known for using materials like scrap metal, sugar, and chocolate to create visual compositions, Muniz has always explored the way we perceive things. Now, he brings this approach to design. Sofas, armchairs, and tables take on exaggerated proportions and details that reference handcrafted work—apparent stitches, enlarged buttons, inflated volumes, visible seams. All of this is designed to create functional furniture that, at first glance, seems like it came from a dollhouse but is robust and intended for daily use, reinforcing the duality between illusion and materiality, a recurring theme in his work.
Arquétipos questions the way we interact with the objects around us. Linen, wood, and marble combine in a game of contrasts, where the design works playfully, emphasizing the relationship between scale and materiality. Each piece of furniture is both a functional object and a field of conceptual experimentation. These are artifacts that invite reflection on the way we interact with the physical world and build meaning from it.
Clarissa Schneider
Curator