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Busy Bee:  The Insect-inspired by Marlene Huissound

Since establishing her studio in 2013 straight after graduating from London’s Central Saint Martins with an MA in Material Futures, product and surface designer, Marlene Huissoud’s innovative work has been steadily gaining justifiable accolades.

Describing her work as “experimental,” Marlene harnesses completely organic and biodegradable materials, such as black-as-molasses honeybee bio resin, to craft the distinctive sculptural items in her collections, “Of Insects and Men and From Insects”.

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Marlene’s unique talent lies in handling the essence of these textures for creating the industrial objects of her collections such as her Bee Vase, Tree Vase and exceedingly impressive, Press Cake. The unique results look as if they were made out of glass or leather. In fact, Marlene has created “a whole palette of materials” derived from the insect world, and has spent many months studying their properties and experimenting with various techniques.

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Discovering how to use traditional production techniques for these unique materials was challenging. After many failures they succeeded in blowing the honeybee bio resin with the same method used for glass but by adapting a specific kiln and keeping the temperature at around 120˚C, which is ten times lower than the temperature required for glass blowing. The resulting handmade items are organic in form and distinctively mesmerizing in appearance, their surfaces appearing to move and shift under an audience’s gaze as they are viewed from all sides.

^{Image courtesy by Studio Immaters}

Marlene also manipulates other natural materials such as the silkworm cocoons which she splits, unravels and then forms into a paper before coating with a special varnish she’s concocted from propolis. The result resembles a “wooden leather” than can be utilized in furniture, surface and fashion design. And taking the nature inspired patterns into more recognizable realms are textiles printed from her pen and ink drawings. But Marlene reveals that she very rarely draws final shapes for her sculptural items. Even when a client commissions a certain piece, she stays very abstract in her initial descriptions, believing strongly in her materials and preferring not to be guided by anything in her creative process.

more. marlene-huissoud.com