Polyethylene is the most common plastic in the world. Used for food packaging, grocery bags, detergent bottles, and so much more, the often single-use items are ubiquitous in our daily lives.
For computational designer Xuanhao Li, polyethylene became a fruitful source for envisioning a new way to repurpose the omnipresent material.
While working as a textile developer, Li noticed that the plastic films lining boxes and wrapping textiles during transit were often thrown in the trash. He began to collect the material and experiment with its properties, particularly its transparency, malleability, and smooth texture, as it passed through a heat-press machine. “The aim was to fuse polyethylene films into sheets that balanced rigidity and flexibility while achieving a hazy translucency for lampshades,” he tells Colossal. “No material is inherently unattractive or cheap.”
When Li watched a documentary about sea turtles that mistook plastic bags for jellyfish, the explorations found their form. “The haunting imagery of drifting plastic and its tragic impact on marine life deeply moved me,” the designer shares. He also visited the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta to observe the live animals and their bulbous bodies.
After developing the material, Li created digital motifs that imitated both a knitted structure and the jellyfish form, which he cut using a CNC machine. He adds:
I attached tentacles with varying widths, following rhythmic patterns that abstractly echo the textures of jellyfish tissue…For the top portion of the jellyfish, I employed a smooth, overlapping layering technique, which mimicked the delicate, rounded bell of the jellyfish. For the base, I used an opposing technique, where the pieces were knitted with the edges facing each other, resulting in a ridged texture that evoked the intricate, flowing form of jellyfish tentacles.
Resulting is Polycycle Illumination, an elegant collection of tabletop lamps. Standing at different heights, the designs together reflect the changes in shape as a jellyfish pulsates and swims through the water. Li hopes the series functions as both a functional object and a call to reduce plastic waste that threatens marine life.
Polycycle Illumination has won numerous awards, including the title of Design Project of the Year for Dezeen China, and is on view at the Red Dot Design Museum in Singapore.
Li is currently working on a new lamp series made of discarded silk cocoon trimmings to debut this May at London Craft Week. He plans to focus more on home and fashion design in the coming months, and you can follow his latest projects on his website and Instagram.
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