“I am always on the hunt for beautiful plastic” Simone - Atelier Tonni
Simone tells us about the treasure hunt for plastic while she is surrounded by beautiful vases, bowls, and other artworks in the workshop on Vesterbro in Copenhagen. Here, we also find boxes filled with colored plastic in small pieces and cardboard forms, which she uses to cast plastic around.
“I get my plastic from many places, primarily in Denmark”.
Old milk crates, for example, are transformed into the dark green bowls. The pink and white designs are from various parts of medicine containers. The light green ones are from old bottle holders, and the yellow ones are used soda bottle caps. In this way, the material also carries a history.
Sustainability is my passion
Simone is driven by creating something beautiful in a sustainable way - it is her passion. “There is a lot of the recycled plastic that we have in Denmark that isn't used because it's too expensive in labor hours to recycle, so often it is much easier to buy something from another country”. Therefore, it requires more of you, as a company and an artist, if you want to create sustainable designs by recycling the materials that would otherwise simply be thrown away. That was where the idea of plastic came from. There is, in fact, a lot of plastic that isn't recycled. It is precisely that plastic which Simone turns into interior design and art.
Finding a strength in the material
Making design and art out of plastic scraps and waste can be challenging for production; you cannot order it in the same way as other materials.
“It takes a bit of time to get used to working with waste, because you can't get it constantly”.
Simone sometimes runs out of a color, and it can therefore be difficult to have a constant production as a company. A tip for other companies is to “embrace it [that production can be difficult] and find another strength in the product you make”. In Simone's case, creating handmade designs where none of the products are identical.
The strength of the beautiful designs from Atelier Tonni is also the story that the works carry with them, which is expressed by the fact that each design is completely unique. This is craftsmanship that has taken many hours to create, which perhaps can remind us that sustainability takes time and requires an effort, but in the end is beautiful and enriching.
At KEEPR, we love good craftsmanship, and we love that the works by Simone from Atelier Tonni remind us that sustainability requires a lot of energy and time, but that it is worth it.
