Simon Heijdens
Artist
Simon Heijdens’s small East London studio is spotless, located in a small mews close to Brick Lane, with worn but clean floorboards and two desks and two computers. An abstract soundtrack of ambient clicks and beeps plays in the background. The only evidence of work in progress are three pieces of prototype ceramics on a sideboard, part of Heijdens’s Broken White project. created in 2004 for Droog Design, Broken White encapsulates the designer’s approach, an intriguing mix of analogue and digital explorations into the relationship we have with objects and our surroundings, By combining work that uses simple, apparently immutable materials like ceramics with the unpredictable aesthetics of computer-generated graphics, Heijdens reveals a fascination with the role objects play in our society, and the ways in which our perception of them can be changed.