Transitions // BLOK

Art Direction

— 2021

Challenging the relationship between fitness and design, Alina zum Hebel and Lilli Conreen present ‘Transitions’. The result; a series that explores our relationship with gym equipment as everyday objects. At the core of their being, they exist in a meaningful network of purpose and function that is concealed from view. By encouraging such objects to behave in a way that they’re not supposed to, the work brings attention to the object's reality of performance and labour. 

Concrete, as a material, can be a foam whilst solid and challenges the elasticity that a foam roller usually possesses. Made in collaboration with a Paris based glassblower, the redesigned kettlebell is strangely light, fragile through stress and perfectly elastic. Cut from blocks of Himalayan rock salt, the dumbbell discusses the ideas of perspiration and that eventually, it will crumble away when interacting with the human body.

The film navigates through a series of deep interactions with each object, exploring the materiality and the senses. Transitioning from physical to digital, each object has been translated into code, using 3D design and skeuomorph sound, so that they can exist without the rules of nature.

Art Directors: Lilli Conreen & Alina zum Hebel
Photographer: Alina zum Hebel
Sounds Designer: Tom Nichol
Exhibition Photography & Salt Lick Image: Max Oppenheim
Film: Nicholas Lavezzo
3D Motion Designer: Karol Sielski

Collaborators: Martin Conreen, Markus Hansen and Ben Cullen Williams

Interview here