Batten and Kamp

For Alexandra Batten and Daniel Kamp, design begins at the intersection of the familiar and the unfamiliar. The New Zealand born duo, who established their collaborative practice in 2020, create functional sculptures that seem to belong to a world somewhere between ancient landscapes and imagined futures. Working across furniture, lighting and collectible design, they combine raw natural materials with industrial precision, allowing stone, metal and organic forms to enter into unexpected relationships. Their work often feels simultaneously primordial and futuristic, as though objects unearthed from an ancient civilisation have been reimagined for life on another planet.

A recurring tension runs through Batten and Kamp’s work. In their Steel and Stone series, angular metal structures are attached to raw boulders, bringing together the apparent permanence of geology and the engineered language of contemporary design. Their Titan Lounger takes this dialogue further, pairing a cast aluminium seat with a rough cut marble boulder. The result is sculptural and almost otherworldly, yet remains grounded in the physical experience of sitting, touching and inhabiting an object. In their approach, materials are not simply chosen for their aesthetic qualities. Their weight, texture and history become active participants in the design.

Nature is more than a visual reference for Batten and Kamp. It is a repository of memory, particularly the landscapes of Aotearoa New Zealand, where both designers grew up. Their Echo lighting series transforms aluminium replicas of branches collected from sites affected by natural disasters in their respective hometowns into delicate suspended sculptures. The contrast between the fragile silhouettes of trees and the precise, manufactured structures holding them creates a quiet meditation on loss, displacement and transformation. Light filters through the metal forms like a memory of a forest, preserving something that has disappeared while giving it a new physical presence.

Moving between craftsmanship, digital experimentation and speculative thinking, Batten and Kamp challenge the conventional boundaries between art and design. Their objects are functional, but they also invite contemplation, carrying traces of places, imagined futures and the elemental forces that shape our world. Rather than offering definitive answers, their work leaves room for ambiguity, allowing the familiar to become strange and the seemingly impossible to feel tangible.