Roxane Lahidji

Department: Social Design

Marbled Salts

In ancient times salt was rare and costly. Yet, since the industrial revolution it has become so cheap and easily available that we longer recognise its value. With ‘Marbled Salts’, Roxane Lahidji explores new possibilities, reinventing salt as a sustainable design material. She makes use of its unique physical properties as a self-binding composite to create a set of tables and stools. By mixing it with tree resin, she gives it shape and strength. Coal powder and natural colour variations in salt mimic the aesthetics of expensive natural stone such as marble. Herein she draws a contradictory parallel between the flexible versatility of salt and the material language of heavy and solid rock. The design also aims to invite a discussion on the concept of value – essentially a social construct − and the costs the finished product implies.