Taking inspiration from the botanical world, Cristina Celestino realised a collection of footed platters and trays born from glass gems, from the crushing of discarded coloured glasses.
Gemmazione (“gemmation”) in botany refers to the recovery of vital activities for a plant. During the spring the buds (in Italian: gemme) come out on the trunk as a sign of a vegetative proliferation. The word Gemmazione also defines the reproduction process of some animal or plant organisms. Bumps spring up on the cell’s edge and then they separate to make new entities or a colony.
Coming from these definitions and using them as design inspirations, a collection of footed platters and exhibition trays are born from glass gems. The gems are obtained from the mechanical crushing of discarded colored glasses. Then these gems are melted inside of transparent glass (cylindrical) trunks. From the outside you can feel light bumps, like buds about to bloom through the smooth surface of the transparent glass.
Inside, exactly like a bacterial proliferation, the gems layers overlap creating a precious surface of matter. On the top of this volume is welded a Petri dish. The Petri capsule is a flat container and it is an instrument of work in many biological fields, for the growth of cell cultures. The petri dish allows to watch as from a lens inside of the cylinder where the proliferation in vitro has happened.