Alexandra Batten and Daniel Kamp's work blends organic and artificial elements in meticulously crafted, minimalist compositions. Inspired by science fiction, natural history and the primitive, their work explores contrasts by bolting angular chairs to raw rock, dripping delicate neon lights from aluminium branches and immortalising flowers in titanium. At times dangerous and thought-provoking, their works challenge notions of comfort and progress, while others evoke calm, reflecting the natural landscapes in which they grew up in Aotearoa. We talked with Alexandra and Daniel about their work and production practices.
Interview: Onur Çoban
Who are Batten and Kamp? Can you briefly tell us about yourselves? How did your journey to become a globally recognised designer duo begin?
Batten and Kamp is my partner Alexandra Batten and me, Daniel Kamp, making art together. We are both born and raised in New Zealand, myself on an isolated farm in Hawkes Bay and Ali in the garden city of Christchurch. We met and fell in love at design school in Wellington. We've been together since we were 18 years old, so at 33 and 34, we've almost been together for longer than we were not. So, naturally, our working relationship is deeply rooted in our personal relationship. We had parallel but occasionally intersecting careers in interior architecture and object design for around 10 years before we decided to make our collaboration formal and full time by starting Batten and Kamp in late 2019.
We began B&K in Hong Kong and, to start with, we were mostly designing restaurants and other client projects but we also created objects for ourselves, for the personal expression of it. Quite quickly that personal work began to get more attention than the commercial projects and even started to make some money. So we took a leap and decided to focus on what we really loved - exploring our ideas and questions about the world through making furniture and sculptures. From that early stage Batten and Kamp moved closer to what might be defined as art practice. It took us a while to be comfortable calling ourselves artists, but in truth, that's what we are.
It was 2020, early Covid and we were in Asia - shit was scary. I spent 31 days in a hermetically sealed glass box in an isolation hospital, we were locked out of our home country, economies were super volatile. So we thought, if this is going to work, we need to have our work in as many markets as possible. We made a list of every gallery in the world that we thought might like our work and started cold calling. That probably wouldn't fly anymore but at the time galleries were hungry for talent, so we worked hard and got lucky and now we get to make the work we love and work with the best galleries in the world.
Elsewhere, Batten and Kamp ©
How would you describe your design philosophy?
I wouldn’t say we have a clear philosophy as such. It might be a little pretentious to avoid the question, but every time we try to define a philosophy, it sounds fake, like a sales pitch. The truth is that our work is always evolving and is so intrinsically entwined with who we are that trying to sum it up in a sentence is like trying to explain who you are in a sentence, it can’t really be done authentically.
However, if I were to try I’d say. It has something to do with sincerity. We are trying to engage with the world around us as honestly as we can. We use materials to ask questions, to try to define our relationship with our surroundings - physical and cultural. While design is traditionally about form-giving we often say ‘the world has more than enough forms’. We are more interested in working with what is already there, making novel combinations of preexisting things. We tend to directly employ the things that nature or industry already produced for us.
How does the process of creating together as Batten and Kamp work? What can you say about the synergy that emerges when different perspectives and skills come together?
We built everything about Batten and Kamp together. Our little world is entirely shared and our perspectives are basically one. We do however have slightly different strengths. In creation; Ali is more gestural and poetic, I am more precise. In business it's the opposite; I am broader and Ali is more detailed. We are the most compatible couple I've ever seen. It's pure luck. Fairytale shit. People tend to assume that collaborations are inherently more effective than solo work. I don't believe that, because I think that person-to-person dynamics are so complex that collaborations between creatives often seem a little unnatural. However, when they do work, they really really work.
Titan, Commissioned by Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Batten and Kamp ©
What factors do you take into consideration when researching materials or choosing materials for new projects? Can you tell us a little bit about the material choices in your work?
We don't really make conscious decisions to start a new project or work with a new material. We are just always gathering, and playing, and talking, and then pieces evolve alongside that conversation. We are drawn to particular materials at particular times but it's just a personal, intuitive thing. We are not trying to solve problems, we are just expressing ourselves by curating and remixing the materials around us. We hunt and gather materials which may be natural, manufactured, or even digital and then combine disparate things to make little object poems.
"While it's hard to say how we chose materials. I can be a little more clear on how we chose to work with those materials. We try to let them be themselves - let them act how they want to."
Sheet metal wants to be cut and bent, stones want to anchor, neon wants to be delicate, 3D printed materials want to be complex. If we feel a pieces needs an organic form, we will take that form directly from nature, not try to create it ourselves, because Papatuanuku is better at that than us. If we are using an industrial material, well then it probably makes sense to employ hard edges and clean lines.
F10W3R, Batten and Kamp ©
Which of your works has excited you the most in terms of the design process and the final product?
Sex Tape - where we made a sex tape and sealed it inside a glass coffee table - was a horribly uncomfortable process that resulted in what is probably my favorite piece of ours. I think it's kind of interesting that I love something I hated making.
Sex Tape, Batten and Kamp ©
Which important trends and movements do you think will determine the industrial design and furniture design sector in the coming years? What awaits us in areas such as sustainability, digital production techniques and robotic technologies?
No idea. But I can say that for us personally we are really enjoying bringing more high tech processes back into our work. We came through University at the time when 3D printing was super hype. After that, many designers including us rejected working digitally (we went to the primal extreme of lifting boulders instead of clicking mouses). We started the Steel and Stone collection partly because we wanted to lock ourselves into a system where orders and commissions literally forced us to go out into nature. I'm Interested to notice that now we are both drawn back to these digital processes but this time we're using them in a different way.
For example we're about to finish a couple light sculptures that we created by visiting sites of recent, and personally significant, natural disasters and 3D scanning the debris. We then rematerialise those natural forms (which carry imperceptible records of these violent events) in 3D printed aluminum. Here, the digital is allowing us to engage with natural forms in a new way and engage with the changes happening to the landscapes of our youth. Our projects aren't generally about sustainability as such but they are often about our personal relationship to the earth. Used in the right way, technology can help to connect us to nature instead of isolating us from it.
Steel and Stone, Batten and Kamp ©
Can you tell us a little about the sources of inspiration behind your work? Who are the names you follow with curiosity in this field or in different disciplines?
We honestly don't really follow closely the work of anyone in design. I have an Instagram, but try to only use it for output, and not for input. We go to design shows out of interest, or to support friends or collaborators, and we go to fairs to kind of ‘take the temperature’ of the scene. But otherwise all our inspiration comes from outside of design. From fine art, from science, history, science fiction, and from our general meandering research.
Studio, Batten and Kamp ©
Are you excited about the future and what are your plans?
When it comes to the future of the world, I am a swinging pendulum between the extremes of excitement and dread. Though I work as hard as I can to stay on the excitement side.
In terms of 2025 for Batten and Kamp, yes I’m very excited (an emotion that is mostly positive but also always carries a hint of overwhelm). This year is shaping up to be a big one for us. We've got a show in January in Paris for Fashion Week, then we head to Hong Kong for a period of pure experimentation for a residency and solo show. We also have another residency with a museum in Türkiye, we're launching a new collection with Carpenters Workshop, and doing some more commercial projects. It's a lot, so our biggest project of all this year is to find a way to manage all this healthily and be grateful rather than stressed - to remember to enjoy the life we could only dream of just a few years ago.
Regarding the long term future for Batten and Kamp, I truly can't think of anything more exciting than still doing this with my girl everyday when I'm 85.
