To create a product with a fluid purpose and the ability for spontaneity was the aim behind Bastou. The possibility of creating different forms out of one piece was discovered during the research in the Japanese tradition of "Furoshiki", which uses special knots to enable different uses. It's a scarve, a bag – in different shapes –, a headscarve, a tablecloth, a gift wrapping, a top, a skirt or whatever the user makes from it. The only fixing method are knots.
Idea, drawings, sewing by Milena Bassen
Graphic Design by Kathrin Baumgartner
Screenprint by F.+H. Siebdruck GmbH
Photos by Fenja Cambeis
Sitting in my kitchen I sew this fabric I got from this woman I found on the internet, she was living on the other side of the city. When I picked it up my bike and me were facing a thunderstorm, fabrics got wet, everything got wet by the rain. Like a first probation. She stored them in her basement for years, I stored them in my apartment for months, cutting one after an other in squares, to give them a usage. The smell of an alien basement still in it they got a new meaning, one after an other. The sewing machine was borrowed, the skills were low, the effort was high.
Squares will get new shapes, new meanings, will loose there figure and carry around things that mean something to someone. Knots made by hands that know their function. Knots that can be changed from one moment to the other and change the usage oft he object.
Profession was added by the prints, color was squeezed through a silkscreen, giving the four elements a face, a form. Four elements that give our world a face, that influence our life, that we are made of. That we are mastered by, but that we master, try to, and affect the balance. Power by consciousness.
Limited edition of 32
Edition #1 - Four Elements
Wind blows in one of my ears and leaves my head through the other, taking my thoughts to the clouds where they find their way to lightness.
From earth to me, from me to you. Take this love from me and do with it whatever you want.
This day is mine. I read through the scratches of my sunglasses letters I chose to read. On my way I stretched my arm and picked an apple from a tree, my teeth made forms in that round object. Things I see and think are written down, as embodied pieces of my soul. What will happen tomorrow?