Two Conversations with Grace Prince

The two interviews were recorded as part of the NUMEROVENTI Residency Program, 3 weeks dedicated to material experimentation and production, which took place in September and December 2023 and February 2024 respectively at NUMEROVENTI. 

The resulting body of works is Attentive Still, a collection of 4 furniture pieces characterised by hammered metal structures and combining different materials - including cast glass, sheet glass, valchromat and stainless steel - through a gestural assembly.

The series was produced in collaboration with local Florentine artisans and includes a jewellery intervention by Joanne Burke for the piece Attentive Still 3 (Vase), 2024.

"I realised this nervousness is actually part of it. And you should enjoy the nerves, right? Because otherwise, it's just way too easy...I mean, life shouldn't be easy, you know? It's so boring. So I'm learning to accept these nerves. Enjoy the nerves!"

  

September 9th, 2023

NUMEROVENTI, Florence


Arianna Iandelli: Ready?

Grace Prince: Yes

AI: What’s your favourite colour?

GP: Seriously?

[laugh]

Is this a serious question?

AI: Only if you answer

[laugh]


The day before Grace had told of a lecture that made her realise she wanted to move from fashion to furniture design.


AI: Yesterday we were talking about switching from fashion to furniture design and about how this lecture you attended seemed to be quite a crucial event in your life – What were the hopes and ideas you had when you approached the design world?

GP: Yes, it was a lecture by product designer Lee Broom, who also studied fashion. In the end, my final fashion collection was not hyper fashion let’s say. I was hanging a very thin marble stone backed with aluminium off the body. I had already understood that I had a fascination for more solid forms and textures and that I wanted to play around more with objects.

And Saint Martin[1] was quite open about concept and art direction. So, it seemed an easy transition, to slightly adjust the design technique and build furniture.

Later I did a carpentry apprenticeship because I understood “OK, I can design these types of pieces. I have the skill set of that side, but I need the practical side, the technical side.” Then I spent a few months in my parents’ garage. I converted it into a workshop and started watching videos online on how to make.

I was working as a barista to support myself in the meantime. And then my skills just developed over the months, to the point where I felt I had passed over the line to furniture in a satisfying way and was ready to send it out there. So, I sent it out there.

So many rejections. But then Vincenzo replied to come work with him.


In 2017 Grace moved to Milan to work as the assistant designer to Vincenzo de Cotiis, working extensively with artisans at a range of ateliers across Italy.


AI: It was during this period that you made your first piece?

GP: Yeah, that was the chair[2]. I started with probably the hardest thing to design and build. Mies van der Rohe once said “A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier”. So that was an interesting choice. I started building a chair.

Maybe that's a good thing. It gives you more confidence. You can do it all if you've done the hard one. And I remember I wanted three legs and I wanted an elevation of some kind. Like I wanted to be sort of levitating a little bit, as in that sensation. I remember constantly thinking about it, I was not sleeping just my brain - tik tok tik tok. But this type of ‘work-out’ was also very addictive…

AI: I imagine this feeling is what pushed you to continue.

GP: Exactly. It was this fascination. It was this curiosity, this addiction of your mind working in forms, thinking in 3D.

AI: These last days were quite interesting for me to see the balance between the project, the sketches you made before coming to Florence at Numeroventi, and on the other hand, the decisions you need to take on the spot, while you're physically producing the piece. I wonder how this balance works for you.

GP: Over time now - this is my third year of building for myself - you build up a confidence, a resistance of knowing, even if you can't reason why a line should be cut there. You've built up a gut instinct: “OK, A line needs to be there”. […] So the sketches and the collages, basically my design, they come from sensation.

For example, with the low console, we started by conceiving it as a single big piece, and at the end of the day, I just knew it needed to be cut in two. And then the next day, waking up you're absolutely sure of your instinct. The whole language from start to finish is sensation. 


Grace had arrived at Numeroventi with a series of sketches for the metal structures. The initial project featured 3 pieces: a lamp, a console and a vase. That day the pieces became 4 [3].


AI: It is like setting up the project from sketches, from an idea, and then allowing things to change once you are there physically producing.

GP: Exactly, I can't fully visualise the finished pieces from the sketches. Then again, I find it interesting that Martino [4] said that the works were loyal to the sketch when he saw the finals.

AI: I guess they convey a consistent visual experience, being part of the same imagery.

GP: Yes, it is a common comment. People often say the final work looks like the original collage or sketch, they can see the line between. And I think that's quite interesting.

AI: What do you pursue in your works?

GP: The general fascination of mine is the poetic sensations that are harnessed in these sorts of delicate forms and how far can you can push it while still maintaining function.

[…]

I just find it beautiful. Especially these delicate sensations. Why do we find it so beautiful? And I've been thinking that, at least for me, it comes from a nostalgia of childhood, like, playing with toys and breaking things and understanding your hand. I think it remains there. We try to put function. We try to build something more stable, but as we get older, that play remains with us.

AI: And this is also very crucial about the whole idea of collectible design, isn’t it? Working towards a unique assembly but at the same time connected to function, to usage.

GP: And this is the main reason why I need to be present while working with artisans, because just sending a drawing, it wouldn’t work.  

For example, a side table I built called Static Fragility 3, was a real push and pull, to get this equilibrium alongside function. And from seeing the final piece it doesn't look like it was. At my show people kept saying “OK, it's very beautiful, but it doesn't function right?”, so then I was balancing a two-litre bottle of water on the very edge of the glass to prove it to them. This is also quite nice because it was a sort of magic moment that people understood. Oh, it actually works!

February 19th, 2024

Via Melzo, MILANO


During the second week of residency in December Grace focused on the finish of the metal structures and on the glass elements. While during the third week in February she tested the MDF valchromat structure and focused on the finishing details.

Meanwhile over the months, the idea of presenting the series at the Bart-Frey Studio in Milan in April becomes concrete.


AI: Our last interview was five months ago, the series had just been started and we did not know the whole process would have organically expanded in a path consisting of 3 residencies and culminating in a work presentation in Milan during Design Week. So…how do you feel today?

GP: [laugh] I’m good!
Yes, as we discussed on other occasions, I think when things happen organically, it means the project is headed in the right direction.

I think it was after the first week of the residency, I happened to be in Milan during Stephanie's birthday, and I went to the drinks at her studio. If I hadn’t been there and seen that space maybe it wouldn't have clicked in my head that this could be an option to show the works in. And then Martino and you have been so open to these ideas coming in as well, which is also so important.

You were so generous with your absorption of the ideas and it’s turned out all very beautiful. I feel grateful for this.

AI: These new materials you brought during the residencies progressively involved more and more people. Different figures engaged with the project. We spoke a lot about Fabrizio and the metal sections last time. But we also had been working with a Glass Studio[5] in Colle Val d’Elsa for the base of the lamp. Then we had Filippo[6] joining for the carpentry part. Joanne Burke contributes to the series with a jewellery intervention on the vase. On the event side, Stefanie, while Chiachi is working on the graphics. All these people came in very fluidly, some were friends and professionals we had a connection with. This creates a sort of community sense, a relational aspect also connected to this series. Is it common for you to have so many people involved or it's a new thing? Do you think this collective experience influenced this body of works in a specific way?

GP: Yes, I think this is exactly a condition of my practice because I made a choice not to accumulate, not to accumulate all these large machines. And I wanted to be nomadic as a designer who moves between artisans, who moves between collaborators.

I think that it's right to go to someone who is a specialist and you access their knowledge. From my side it's more about harnessing the gesture involved and bringing these people together which is also an important part of the work, choosing the right people. It's curating the piece itself, the people involved, the materials. So this is integral to my practice, to bring a community together.

And it's also what makes it fun. There is a lot of ego in design and architecture, where it is just so focused on you. That ego has to exist, because you have to have confidence in your work, but it's so much fun bringing people together. I mean why else would you do this?





AI: Was the whole process more complex compared to your studio practice in Zurich?

GP:I listened to this interview recently, which talks about how an artist's job is to create order out of chaos. That's it. But living on this border is a bit scary because you can easily fall into chaos.

[laugh]

And I definitely had emotional moments, like this last week was the hardest. The pressure got high because I had to finish the pieces, and I fell into the chaos. But it is all about bringing order: you're bringing order to the structure and you're bringing order to the place, your position.




The previous Thursday night Grace had stayed awake in her loft contemplating the vase which would be sent to Joanne in Rome a few days later. Silk bows, a piece of an industrial nylon blanket, and a rubber string with a square cross-section looked like possible additions. It had taken a little breakdown to definitively discard them as options and decide to send the structure alone as it was.


GP: With Numeroventi, I had to arrive and the chaos was there. I didn't know you. I didn't know the artisans. I didn't know much. So the chaos existed. And then the process of the three weeks was about bringing order to that chaos, meeting the artisans, finding the materials, getting to know you, and building a relationship with you. But this was the beautiful aspect because I saw immediately how the team trusted me. I brought my ideas to the table and you ran with it. And that's so beautiful.


AI: Would you do this again?

GP: [laugh] Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was good.
This week I struggled with.. because there is the pressure of the work but there is also the pressure to just enjoy it because it's such an amazing opportunity. […] Like feeling nervous but forcing myself to try and enjoy it. And then at the end of the week, I realised this nervousness is actually part of it.

And you should enjoy the nerves, right? Because otherwise, it's just way too easy. And this needs to be a challenge. Why else would you do this if it just came easy? I mean, life shouldn't be easy, you know? It's so boring. So I'm learning to accept these nerves.

Enjoy the nerves!

AI: Do you have any takeaways from the three residencies?

GP: Yes, in the way that I normally take a very long time to make design decisions. It is a very slow curation where I'm feeling my way through. And when you have time on your hands, you can go home and feel it. And then maybe make the decision in two weeks because you have that beautiful privilege. But here I didn't have that privilege. And that's why I was so nervous making these decisions fast because I hadn't done that before. So that was new to me and then realising that I was able to make a collection in three weeks. This experience really helped me, to trust myself more with making faster decisions, and that's also important.

AI: The series was influenced by the site specificity, both the architecture of Numeroventi, the lighting, and the scale…

GP: But also the furniture that was already there, already existing in the context of the Palazzo.

AI: When I look at one of your works, it seems there is an inner balance within the elements that are part of it. So obviously there is a quest for the piece itself as an absolute object, but then these inner properties are concerning an external space. This time as we said it was Numeroventi, which is quite a connotated place, with its frescoes, and soft lighting…

GP: Yes and that was very different because normally the context is my studio

AI: This condition must be impacting, especially in furniture design

GP: This is the difference between art and design. Even though I feel I'm straddling the line, it definitely needs to sit on the function and design side. And you need function to live with it, this is crucial. And when you gave me the studio space the pieces didn't work in there, I had to move them into the loft to understand them better. And then we looked at them in the context of the living space and they worked.





AI: It's really about balancing a perspective that comes from the object itself, and one that goes beyond and really engages with the surrounding.

GP: Once I was talking to this curator and they said “I feel like you're kind of a witch putting together a spell”. And then their like “so if someone ever broke your work, they would be cursed”.

[laugh]

AI: Which doesn't surprise me since we spoke about this

religious aura surrounding your pieces!

GP: My friend said I do work that looks ‘catholic’, but then they changed it to ‘protestant’.

[Laugh]

AI: These aspects of equilibrium, suspension, and elevation do have a contemplative nature.

GP: I don't even know how to specifically define the poetry that exists there, but I think we are all interested in it…and we're also nervous about living with it.

AI: Yes, it is the idea of fragility. Sometimes parts of your work seem floating and you are almost scared.

GP: You're scared to live with that with the tag of function attached to it. But it is also intriguing. It's kind of like a challenge. The thing is that the pieces aren't fragile, but it's just the feeling of precariousness behind them.  

I’ve finished my cigarette.

AI: Perfect timing!

Now you can tell me your favourite colour?

[laugh]

GP: I guess beige is my favourite colour.

Numeroventi beige.

[laugh]





Interview by Arianna Iandelli
Images by Daniel Civetta and Gaia Anselmi


[1] Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London

[2]Unsettled Balance 4, 2020

[3] Later become Attentive Still II (Side Table), 2024 and Attentive Still IV (Low Console), 2024


[4] Martino Di Napoli Rampolla, Founder and Owner of Numeroventi

[5] Collevilca produced the casted metal

[6] Filippo Mannucci, artisan and designer, assisted in the assemblage of the valchromat structure.