M.E. asks Sebastian Wrong, Designer, Co-Founder and Design Development Director of Established & Sons about his recent installation entitled "A Buggs Life" which opened in early July. The work is on show until August the 19th at Established & Sons Limited on Duke Street, St. James's in London.

‘A Buggs Life’ is your first solo show. Why now? What made you want to present the Buggs lights in particular in the way that you have?

This is not my first show, it's my first design solo show but my third solo show. The previous two shows were presenting my sculpture. The Buggs life show evolved from the Buggs light concept as a foundation to develop a collection of objects that pushed the material content and expression further than the original piece that I launched in April in Milan. The gallery show consists of a ten-metre tunnel installation that houses 30 suspended spheres with enamelled gold teeth, the viewer is able to see the spheres suspended at different heights and orientations through the narrow slits that have been cut into the tunnel wall.

The light emitted from the spheres reflects the gold teeth detail on the glass within the black tunnel. In contrast to this are the four table lights that are mounted onto plinths that cut diagonally across the gallery floor, breaking up the remaining area away from the black tunnel. The table lights sitting on the plinths have a monumental presence in the space, which is very much what I was interested in expressing for this show. Sales and object formality (column and cone) was at the heart of the work, the results of which are slightly absurd and distorted, both in scale and material content.

The accompanying press release mentions your concerns were to comment on 'perceived value'. Is this a comment on the world of design specifically, or something more all-encompassing?

The 'perceived value' content to the show can be perceived in a number of directions, their is the play on the gold tooth notion (status, street culture and piracy) and the subtle play on materials and scale. The cartoon quality to the works has been represented using specific materials such as the yellow polyethylene column and bases (resembling processed cheese) and the rawness of the chain sawed wooden column I contrast to the refined cast concrete bases and columns mixed with the classicism of the marble cone. By combining all these materials the pieces have taken on an exaggerated presence both formally and materially. 

How has the reaction been to the show?

Very positive.

Are you planning on creating further installation work in the future? Does this signal the start of a different direction for you, or the return to your roots in sculpture?

Yes, I have been commissioned with the artist Richard Woods to make a site specific instillation in the V&A museum in September. This piece is very much in the spirit of the grand Victorian environment of the museum.

Although I have focused on making design objects for the last seven years, I never stopped making sculpture or thinking about sculpture. I now have a more 'high breed' intuition between sculpture and design which continues to feed and influence my work, but does not confuse the two.