Artist and jewellery designer Caio Marcolini creates work that sits between the material and ethereal world. He has developed a weaving process that enables him to create fine, light-weight sculptures that have a translucency and delicacy to them that make them feel like they are alive and growing.

His practice is inspired by capturing movement Marcolini says that as he makes each piece there is a point where the work begins to almost shape and form itself. Marcolini sees his work as organisms, that have a continuous pulse and a cellular configuration that carries life through them. His work tangles and grows in an organic way around itself, like snaking vines.

Marcolini is based in Brazil and hopes to include the history of making in his country in his work. He combines his technical knowledge with the heritage of sculpture making and develops tools that allow him to bring together sculpture, drawing, and craft.

Although made with metals, Marcolini’s malleable pieces loop and twist around each other, playing with the perception of solidity and fluidity. The artist calls his body of work a “colony” of individual organisms, explaining that each piece has a pulse and life of its own.

Also inspired by the idea of creating pieces that have a life of their own, Italian sustainable design studio High Society focuses on creating plant-based lighting and furniture using upcycled post-industrial waste.

The studio explores how technology and craftsmanship can come together to better the connection between mother nature and human life.

Amongst the High Society collection, which can be viewed on the Cluster Crafts online exhibition and purchased through the online shop, are the Senilia lampshades. Each lamp is unique and is made with and made with a by products from beer and coffee production, one made of hops and the other coffee bean skins. Waste is given new life and new purpose, but the material’s story not hidden from the viewer.

“The starting point of the project is the exploration of ageing, as the need to embrace the circularity of life,” says High Society. “As our body alters with time, the wrinkled and bumped light shapes and surfaces reflect those altered states.”


The surface texture is organic and high society allow the pieces to bend and settle in irregular, tubular forms. To bring the Senilia lamps to life, High Society collaborated with beer brewing and coffee roasting companies.

“The collection is an invitation to reconsider ageing not solely as a phase but as a lifelong process. Through the prevailing culture of wellness, we perceive ageing as inherently wrong. The current wellness lifestyle uncovers narcissistic traits, focusing on youthfulness and body culture. We wanted to explore the beauty behind imperfections and wrinkles, those signs that best represent the natural passing of time.”