Dutch artists Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta founded DRIFT in 2007 after graduating from the Design Academy in Eindhoven. With a multi-disciplinary team of 64, they work on experiential sculptures, installations and performances. They first collaborated on Gordijn’s graduation project, Fragile Future, which saw a number of ball-shaped LED lamps with real dandelion seeds glued onto them, giving the bulbs a flower-like appearance. With both depth and simplicity, DRIFT’s work illuminates the parallels between man-made and natural structures through deconstructive, interactive and innovative processes. The artists raise fundamental questions about what life is, and explore a positive scenario for the future. Fragile Future turned out to be the most successful project of DRIFT so far.
All individual artworks have the ability to transform spaces. However, the confined parameters of a museum or a gallery does not always do justice to a body of work. Rather, architecture or the public sphere can often help it to reach its potential. DRIFT brings people, space and nature on to the same frequency, inspiring audiences to reconnect to our planet.
DRIFT has realised numerous exhibitions and created projects from around the world. Their work has been exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London UK, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, US, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the UTA Artist Space, Atlanta, GA, the Garage Museum, Moscow, Russia and the Mint Museum, Charlotte, CA among others. Their work has also been presented at the Venice Biennale in 2015, and is in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, the San Francisco Musem of Modern Art, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK.
The duo have won many awards around the world for their Fragile Future collection, including the 1st Prize Stichting ArtiParti in 2006 as well as the International Design Prize ‘Lights of the future’ for the German Design Council. In 2010, their Concrete Chandelier won a prize at the Moët-Hennessy Pavillion of Art and Design. Their work is also widely praised within the Netherlands, where they won the 1st Prize of the ZomerExpo at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, and the Finest Light Sculpture Prize for Interieur, Kortrijk. Their work Flylight was rewarded with Best Piece of Arte Laguna, in Venice. More recently, in 2019 they were selected as Designer of the Year with the Dezeen Awards for their work Franchise Freedom.
