Grace Prince on Collected Unravellings and the poetics of fragility in design

Designer Grace Prince has a distinct way of breaking away from convention. In her intentionally bare works of design, restrained yet active, she keeps function and purity of form at heart, while deconstructing everything around them until the moment right before collapse. Somehow, these objects are held together, inhabiting the tension at the edge of disarray. Over the years, Prince has continually refined these expressions of fragility, absence and presence as aesthetic and functional statements in her works of design: displayed last year in the Held Absence exhibition at the Béton Brut gallery in London, followed by the fashion and lifestyle series, The Sequence Collection, with Barcelona-based fashion brand Paloma Wool and now in her new lighting design collection, Collected Unravellings—also the title of her current solo exhibition at the Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery in New York, on display from May 1 – June 20, 2026.

At first glance, the objects—pendant light, wall lamps and table lamps—might appear clumsily made or put together. On a closer look, these seemingly fragmented assemblies sharpen into what she calls ‘poetics of delicate states’: a translucent orb shaped by the immaterial light emanating from it; a sturdy metal chain stretched to the verge of yielding by a lightweight paper pendant; and a miscellany of objects seemingly about to unravel. This sense of frugality and revealed assembly is intended, seen in the use of loose forms articulated by glass and folded paper as well as lamp cords, left tangled and laid bare.

For Collected Unravellings, fascinated by the intricacies of blown glass, the Zurich-Milan-London-based product designer explores a balance between artisanal handcraft and her own material curiosities, moulded further by her sensitivity to light. Though fairly novel explorations for Prince’s practice—working with handblown and sandblasted glass alongside glass trail—the recent work remains rooted in her larger pursuit of pushing the limits of conventional material expression. STIR speaks with the multidisciplinary British designer about the ongoing showcase as well as her pursuit of ‘passages of time as design intentions’.

Pranjal Maheshwari: What prompted your conception of Collected Unravellings, and how would you describe the evolution of your design language with these new pieces?

Grace Prince: It was an idea I had about a year ago; instead of trailing glass on the outside, I wanted it to be on the inside of the blown glass. Working with Berlin Glassworks, we explored this idea as a material investigation, pushing the boundaries of what glass can do. Getting such a thick trailing on the interior was difficult, but once we found the right technique, I found it beautiful and knew I wanted to incorporate it into an upcoming project.

My previous collection had quite sharp motifs, so with this one I wanted everything to feel much softer, more organic, looser. That's where the sensation of unravelling came from: this looseness of form, this curvature of blown glass, all these quiet moments of softness coming together and building on the poetics of delicate states.

Pranjal: What significance does each material—hand-blown glass, metal, paper and rattan—hold for the expression of the pieces?

Grace: I often describe my practice as a material research practice; in fact, that was my formal role—I was employed at ETH University in Zurich as a material researcher in architecture. I have a deep fascination with material expressions and how they can be combined. That sensibility is integral to everything I bring into my own work.

With this collection, glass was the starting point. From there, cast white bronze and polished stainless steel came in. Metal is something of a baseline material for me. I like to play with weight and lightness, with varying degrees of transparency, [and] in this way, paper and rattan became a theme. I do not decide the materials from the [outset]; they come in naturally during the process of making. If there's one rule I hold to, it's that I tend to avoid materials with too strong an artificial presence, such as plastics or resins. I've used resin on occasion, but in general I'm drawn far more to the feeling of something more solid, something with inherent material honesty.

Pranjal: Each piece shows visible traces of handiwork and intention, be it the unfinished edges around the cuts or the exposed welding joints. Could you elaborate on this language in your pursuit of fragility or redefinition of material limits in the context of this collection?

Grace: I’m interested in passages of time as design intentions; materials exposed in some manner. For example, my metalworking normally begins with a relatively pure form; from there, I cut and re-weld the structure to find a new form in the pursuit of understanding the material's limits. I do all my own welding, so each mark is an intentional trace, left exposed to better understand the sensitivity and handwork behind the making. I appreciate this type of sensitivity being left open. Furthermore, this is also one of the reasons function remains important to my work. I like the idea of further traces accumulating as the piece functions in the everyday and settles into a space over time.

Pranjal: In what ways does the presence and absence of light inform the collection?

Grace: I deliberately left certain sections of the glass completely transparent while hand-sandblasting other sections, controlling the sandblasting line to produce translucency in decided areas. I worked in the same way with the chandelier piece, purposely leaving openings for the raw light to pass through, combined with the paper’s translucency in other sections. This, of course, changed the way light moved out of the piece. It [became] a buildup, a back-and-forth, until the right balance was reached.

I'm sensitive to light in the spaces I inhabit. That means a warm, soft glow that can still genuinely illuminate a space. It bothers me when the light is too dim, when you can't read a book beside it. But it equally bothers me when the light is too harsh or too cold. I have very particular criteria for the lamps in my home, for the quality of light I want to surround myself with, and so in that way, I automatically trusted what type of lighting I wanted to create.

Prince embeds time in these objects through visible labour and later use. Harnessing the inherent frailty of paper and handblown glass, she also demonstrates a deep sensitivity to material behaviour, arriving at product designs continually redefined by light’s calibrated permeability. These lights, seemingly resisting collapse, remain suspended, offering their exposed self, their construction, their raw cables, their shy illuminance, with their everyday use becoming part of the object’s continued becoming.

‘Collected Unravellings’ by Grace Prince is on view from May 1 – June 20, 2026, at the Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery, New York.