“In a way, Smoke is a culmination of ideas I had during my time at the Eindhoven Academy," muses Dutch designer Maarten Baas. These were ideas about the process of design, beauty, striving for perfection, the exchange between man and nature. People tend to hold on to what they have, without wanting things to change. Time is regarded as a tedious factor and not an extra dimension. We don’t often see any value in the process of change. Damage has to be repaired to maintain the original concept symmetrical, shiny and tight. This is considered to be perfection. Nature, generally regarded as perfect, has a fluid approach to such irregularities. If a human nails a traffic sign to a tree, it simply grows over it and creates a beautiful entwinement. This interaction between man and nature is interesting. The fact that the tree changes its growing process only adds to the beauty. But nature has playful ways of playing its cards and it’s the ultimate way to suspend a traffic sign altogether. The varied responses of humans and nature to unintentional changes are stimulating. The oppressive idea that things have to remain the same had to be turned upside down. "What happens to a piece of furniture when you treat it in a way that is neither a “should” or an “intention” – that was the origin of Smoke. Instead of picking a piece of furniture as it was, or trying to restore it to its original state, I burnt it. The shape and asymmetry were altered and the surface carbonised. I ensured that the chair was still a chair, and in my opinion, no uglier for its treatment. This new beauty was finished with a transparent epoxy resin to make it useful again. In a way, it was a sacrifice to enter a new chapter. This principle was first applied to baroque furniture. With the expo at the Moss Gallery in New York, I could take it one step further, creating furniture that is usually kept for the mausoleums of conservation pieces. Collaborating with the Groningen Museum (NL) gave me access to its furniture collection and in turn, created pieces that were bought for the museum’s new collection," explains Baas.