JUDGES OBJECTS OF COMMON INTEREST DESIGNERS

A lot has happened in the year since we last caught up with Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis of Objects of Common Interest, our Designer of the Year 2022.

- ROSA BERTOLI

The pair opened an 800 sq m manufacturing studio in their native Greece, the result of Romanianborn craftsman Ovidiu Colea donating the contents of his Long Island City manufacturing facility to the pair, as he retired from the business.

Petaloti, Trampoukis and Colea had been collaborating for a few years; in 2017, the three of them created a collection of tableware titled ‘Relativity of Color’ (W*224). Having worked between New York and Athens since launching Objects of Common Interest in 2015, Petaloti and Trampoukis had been flirting with the idea of opening something in Athens for a while. ‘From the start, we had wanted to activate a relationship with Greek makers, to bring something back to our country,’ says Petaloti. ‘So we took Colea’s workshop and transported it to the Piraeus, an area of Athens that historically hosted a lot of factories. Finally, for the first time, we will be able to control our own production, which will give us all the freedom in the world for experimentation: it’s like a child with a full Play-Doh set. Now we can do anything.’