Michael Marriott has been working as a designer since leaving the Royal College of Art in 1993. Although trained as a furniture designer, his practice is particularly broad in scope, embracing the design of exhibitions and installations on one hand, furniture and products on the other. He is also often involved with many other peripheral activities: teaching, writing, curating, collating, etc. In all his varied practice there is a common core though, which is a search for the elemental nature of the thing in hand.
Marriott won the Jerwood Furniture Prize in 1999. His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. His list of clients includes Established & Sons, Möve, SCP, Inflate, twentytwentyone, British Council, Design Museum, Arts Council England. Marriott has taught and lectured at many institutions in the UK and abroad. He is currently senior tutor / Design Products at the Royal College of Art.
What makes your objects speak?
If my objects speak, I think it is more likely a whisper or a hum. I aspire to make objects that have a feeling of familiarity, and are therefore quiet. On the whole I’m not so interested in objects that shout, it seems like there’s too much shouting going on in this world.
