CLOSER

TSATSAS CLOSER

“But if you could just see the beauty,
These things I could never describe.”


Joy Division. “Isolation.” Closer. 1980.


Showing the ephemeral, the transient nature of a moment was the starting point for the project CLOSER, in which Esther and Dimitrios Tsatsas, the designer duo behind TSATSAS, explored the topic of proximity.

Based on photographs of the collection taken in Paris in early 2017 by Dimitrios Tsatsas, CLOSER plays with the elision of distance. Digitally-enlarged images are photographed again, appearing as on the screen with their fragmented structures and their typical digital coloring. By zooming in the image is decomposed into its visual components – a process of decoding at the visual level.

As a result, the actual subject fades into the background. It becomes the canvas of a transient moment, which our eyes would not otherwise perceive. And thus a small detail suddenly becomes omnipresent and the special essence of its beauty is captured. This is no longer about a product or a volume, CLOSER directs our gaze to the seam fashioned by hand, the open pores of the leather, the shine of blood-red nail polish. Things that we seldom perceive, when we take in the object as a whole.

With the project CLOSER Esther and Dimitrios Tsatsas would like to draw our attention to details, something they have been doing for years with their designs. Nothing is left to chance in their bags and accessories: be it the specially designed pulls on zips; the delicate, connecting brass tubes of the core leather straps; or even the single seam along a handle, which the two discuss and examine together.

CLOSER seeks to encourage us to look more closely. And to capture the beauty of a transient moment before it disappears never to return again.

TSATSAS CLOSER
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