Stockholm-based designer Julia Olanders has used construction materials that are usually hidden in buildings to create a series of decorative vases for her Betweenness project.
The 15 vessels in the series were each made from fabric moulds of the exact same shape. Although they range in size from small to large, each has a bulbous belly and thin neck reminiscent of an Ancient Greek urn or a headless bust.
These molds were cast in plaster, concrete and insulation foam to distort the classical shape into a "blob of a thing", that straddles the line between beautiful and ugly.

"I need to wear a protective gas mask and gloves at all times when working with these materials," Olanders told Dezeen. "They're very bad for my skin and for inhalation. And that's really where my fascination started in this project." "Can something toxic become beautiful" Do we understand the impact these material pose on us and our surroundings when using them in architectural projects and as building materials""

With the main focus of the project on materials themselves, the designer decided to let them guide the production process.
Rather than setting out to achieve a certain shape, for each vase she added the plaster, concrete and insulation foam into the double-sided fabric mould while it was hung upside down.

"I let the materials decide how much room they want to take up and which shape they want to take in the mould," she explained. ...