Designer Mantas Lesauskas investigates the longevity of natural raw and precious materials in his pieces. The desire to create long-lasting furniture for multiple generations requires responsible insight into their archetypes and rituals. By creating limited edition furniture and using materials and methods typical of sculpture, the designer aims to give these objects the opportunity to challenge us like sculpture. The designer is constantly inspired by artisan skills to responsibly combine these traditions with smart industrial manufacturing processes.

This piece is from leftover wood planks cut during the CNC process, this piece revives discarded material through the handcraft of wood carving. The gesture of working by hand embodies a quiet animism — a way of giving spirit and presence to the object. Serving as both a side table and a bookshelf, the piece was named after a song that played in the studio during its creation.

Mantas is a graduate of the Department of Design at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. In his earlier projects he pursued conceptual and social design theories. His Bin Toy, Millegome, Eurofurniture (2008), and It’s Also a Table (2009) expressed the importance of ecological issues and questioned the value of newly created objects. In 2011, he was awarded a Licentiate of Arts after defending an art project and thesis entitled ‘Narratives of Nostalgia in Design Objects’. He is also an associate professor at the Design Department at Vilnius Academy of Arts.