Charles Burnand Gallery participates in the EAST ↔ WEST: Creative Crossings show

Charles Burnand Gallery contributes to EAST ↔ WEST: Creative Crossings, a group show curated by Mayfair Design District and staged at Mandarin Oriental Mayfair, in the UK, with works that delve into the themes of absence and intensity. “Bringing Asian galleries into dialogue with their London counterparts, the exhibition creates encounters rather than a single narrative. Objects sit side by side, allowing affinities and tensions to surface organically. Meaning emerges in the space between,” Charles Burnand Gallery notes in an official release.

Rather than seeking a unified narrative, EAST ↔ WEST: Creative Crossings, running from January 19 – April 16, 2026, operates through juxtaposition. As the curatorial framework suggests, “craft and concept, tradition and experimentation, permanence and impermanence coexist without hierarchy,” positioning the design exhibition as a space where meaning arises between objects, rather than being imposed upon them. Within this context, Charles Burnand Gallery presents two of its represented designers, Jung MyungTaek (known for his Korean art furniture) and Fredrik Nielsen (who works primarily with glass), whose practices anchor distinct yet resonant explorations of material, process and form.

Korean furniture designer Jung’s Creating a Void 16S3 (2016) draws deeply on the philosophical underpinnings of traditional Korean architecture, particularly the principles of absence—“muwi (the absence of activity), mushim (the absence of mind or desire) and muhyung (the absence of shape), Jung reinterprets these elements through a contemporary lens,” the London-based gallery notes. Creating a Void 16S3 exemplifies Jung’s ongoing investigation into the relationship between material, space and spirit.

In contrast, Nielsen’s The Last Days of April foregrounds intensity and physicality. Trained as a glassblower, the contemporary designer pushes the medium beyond its traditional associations with refinement and fragility. His work is shaped by influences ranging from graffiti to music and popular culture. Central to his practice is the body: the act of making becomes a visible and essential component of the finished piece. “I want the physical effort to be so big that I am creating a work that is competing with my own body. Everything that reaches this stadium of competition becomes important; then I have created a volume that is looking for the limits of body and mass,” he notes in an official release.

Beyond the gallery’s presentation, the wider exhibition unfolds through a series of thematic pairings. Designers and artists engage in dialogues such as Nature, Reassembled by Brodie Neill, Artifacts of the Unseen by Tu Wei-Cheng and Ane Christensen and Atmospheres of Form by Moon Seop Seo and Bethan Laura Wood. Other exchanges include Beyond the Vessel with Lee Chang-Soo and Martyn Thompson as well as Matter in Motion, where Nielsen appears in dialogue with Miyuki Guo.

Additional contributions include Growing Silence: Between Void and Matter, pairing Jung with Ian Turnock, apart from Icons Under Pressure by Yang Mao-Lin and Barnaby Barford, The Puzzle of Making by Sheyang Li and Myatt-McCallum, Canvas & Clay by Kim Hyun-Jong and Bruce Mclean and Mythic Objects: Inventing Antiquity by Wei-Cheng and Theo Galliakis. A solo presentation by Ged Quinn, Temporal Layers And Visual Memory, further expands the showcase's exploration of layered histories and visual memory.