Anna Bera

Furniture maker

©Radek Zawadzki

©Emilia Oksentowicz

When nature and design collide

Anna exhibited at the New York and Milan Design Weeks
She is inspired by her native landscape and objects found in nature
She uses a variety of techniques

Born in a village in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains, Anna Bera began working with wood at the age of 14. She learned woodcarving at art school, but craft itself was not her main focus. "Already at that time I was interested in contemporary art and abstraction," she says. After studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, where she chose stage design, Anna worked for few years in the visual arts and new media. She focused on conceptual photography, which led her to collect all kinds of objects found in nature, especially stones, igniting her creativity to the point that conceptual work was no longer enough to fulfil her. "The ideas and objects on which I focused… I felt their energy; it’s just the medium that was not right."

Interview

©Radek Zawadzki

Why did you set up your brand The Whole Elements?: I came up with a project, an object enclosed in the form of a polyhedral rock made of glass. I couldn’t find anyone who would do it for me, so I set up my workshop from scratch and made a collection of wooden objects based on that idea. It is now called Earth Wood Stone.
How do you combine Polish tradition with innovative design?: Everything in my creative process is based on the collision between these two extremes. I was brought up among the beliefs and traditions of the ancient Slavs. My last collection is inspired by rural, primitive techniques, yet giving modern functionality to these objects demands sophisticated skills.
Do you prefer any particular technique?: Carving gave me very intimate contact with wood. I think this is the foundation of how I approach the material, but mostly I just learned by myself. Each of my collections is based on a different concept, the use of different tools and materials, and I find pleasure in this.
What's involved in your design process?: It depends on the design. Usually at first I am inspired by a specific object taken from nature. Then there is the creation of the whole story. It's a bit like solving a puzzle to understand what attracted me to this item and then trying to translate it into forms. It is a long and constantly evolving process.

Anna Bera is an expert artisan: she began her career in 2015 and she started teaching in 2020