SHAHAR LIVNE
CONCEPTUAL MATERIAL DESIGNER

From this premise, Livne developed Lithoplast, a speculative raw material that can be worked like clay, acting as the ultimate symbol of the transformation of matter as it shifts between nature and man-made culture. Neither natural nor purely synthetic, it’s what arises after that distinction collapses.

METAMORPHISM

Metamorphism is Shahar Livne’s ongoing material research and design project that posits a post-plastic future in which plastic waste further permeates the earth’s surface and natural systems, blending with natural matter and emerging in hybrid form as an entirely new and precious extractable resource. This future is already on our doorstep: in 2014, researchers discovered rock formations on Hawaiian beaches  – part sand, part plastic waste – and named them plastiglomerates.

Metamorphism has been further developed in collaboration with Balenciaga and is part of the permanent collections of the Maxxi Museum in Rome and the Naturalis Biodiversity Museum in Leiden.