Where spirit takes form 

Main image: Swamp Creature chair (2024), on display at Studio ALM.

—Interview by Alice Blackwood

Design anthropologist Trent Jansen infuses cultural meaning into his collectible pieces through a process of deep immersion, collaborative exchange and meditative materiality.

What does it mean to be a design anthropologist?

It’s a way of thinking that’s been developing for me over the past 20 years. I began using the term ‘design anthropology’ after encountering Jules Prown’s theories on material culture. He proposes that the things we make or design are the physical embodiment of our culture. I am now interested in finding a purposeful way of embodying cultural values in the things we design and make. I start by trying to understand what a cultural value set is, or the ideas that are important to a particular culture, through research and immersion. Through this process of storytelling and communication my collaborators and I often come across an important narrative or idea that captures a strong cultural value. We look to embody that within the things that we design together.

How has your Kurunpa Kunpu | Strong Spirit project allowed you to put this theory into practice?

This project came from time spent just outside Indulkana [a remote Aboriginal community in far northern South Australia, close to the Northern Territory border], with Indigenous Australian designers Tanya Singer and Errol Evans. Our project kicked off through ‘yarning’—a First Nations methodology rooted in Indigenous Australian knowledge systems.

It’s a process of sitting together and talking informally: getting to know one another, learning about each other’s families, communities, cultures, working practices—including the kind of materials and processes we use.

Through this process of yarning with Tanya, in particular, she spoke to me about the impacts of climate change on her Country. One deeply personal concern was how the increasingly dry conditions—less rain, hotter days—are impacting a significant flower, an important bush food in that region. Tanya captured this beautifully in a series of photographs, including one striking image of a little section of cracked earth. Through these images, she expressed a value system: the importance of Country, and the importance of the interconnectedness of all elements of Country—climate, weather patterns, plant life, the soil system, and so on.

It seemed to me that this was the clearest way to communicate the impact of climate change on that place. We instinctively turned to wood, beginning to carve its surface to recreate the faceted, cracked surface of the red earth in Tanya’s photographs. This was the starting point for our collaborative project—the cabinets and chairs that make up Kurunpa Kunpu | Strong Spirit [the collection born from a three-year intercultural design collaboration between Singer, Evans and Jansen, which appeared at Design Miami in 2024].  

02 Saddle armchair, collaboration with Johnny Nargoodah (2020). Image: Romello Pereira.

03 Manta Pilti Credenza/Dry Sand, collaboration with Tanya Singer (2023). Image: Fiona Susanto.

04 Manta Pilti low chair in American walnut, collaboration with Tanya Singer (2023). Image: Fiona Susanto.

Your recent exhibition, Two Decades of Design Anthropology, at Useful Objects revealed the unique relationship between your work and the materials you use. Can you tell us about that?

I am inherently interested in natural materials that require minimal processing— things that you can take directly from the environment and use. With natural materials, there’s usually some kind of processing involved, but the less processing the better. I’ve always worked with timber, leather, stone and, to some degree, metals. I’m interested in bringing form to materials in a new and innovative way. Like, using a material in a way that it wants to be used—which sounds insane— but letting it do what it wants to do. I love working with leather, for example, because you can only make it do so much; you can only stretch it around a compound curve so far, and then it just wants to fold and wrinkle, because it has this particular structural integrity. I like to work with the beautiful way that it folds, puckers and ripples.

Who would you name as your greatest influences?

My university lecturer Dr Vaughan Rees at UNSW Sydney taught me to think critically and strive for innovative, unique and good design which, hopefully one day, may even be great design. Soon after I graduated, I met David Clark (then editor-in-chief of Vogue Living) who is a good friend with an eye honed to the smallest details. Both Vaughan and David, always insistent on perfection, taught me that every detail must be considered and perfected, which is critical, especially in the collectible end of the market. My time spent with Dutch designer Marcel Wanders, who is an innovative, creative and hard working businessperson, taught me much about the attitude and grit you need to succeed in this industry.

What are you working on next?

At this very moment I’m working on chairs that use full cow hides. There is a frame to provide structure, but the leather flows off the frame, as though suspended in space. This new project is with my longtime collaborator, Nyikina man Johnny Nargoodah. Over the past 15 years, Johnny and I have developed a working process we call ‘sketch exchange’ where one collaborator creates a sketch—an idea they are interested in exploring—and then passes that sketch to the other collaborator. The second person refines the initial sketch and then employs their own ideas to send it in a new direction, then returns the revised sketch to the first person, who does the same. Through this process, Johnny and I have found that we can bring both of our skill sets and approaches into our design and idea development processes, ensuring the creative vision and design outcomes are shared.

05 Pankalangu armchair, collaboration with Broached Commissions (2017). Image: Dan Hocking.

06 Pankalangu Cabinet (detail, collaboration with Broached Commissions (2017). Image: Tobias Titz.