TOTEM — FLORA Museum Challenge submission

The Challenge: take one real, public-domain object from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection and reimagine it into a new world, using FLORA.

My key artifact: a 19th-century rattle by the Xaadas (Haida) people, from Masset, Haida Gwaii. The Met describes it directly: "This raven rattle depicts a perched bird with wings outstretched toward its front — an unusual representation of the raven on a rattle, more typical of the way it would be depicted on a memorial (or totem) pole."

For the Haida, Raven isn't just a myth character — it's one of the two clan divisions their entire society was built on (Raven and Eagle, inherited through the mother's line), and a rattle like this was carried by a chief during ceremonial dances as a mark of rank. Beyond Haida Gwaii, Raven keeps reappearing in the same role across the Pacific Northwest as a creator and trickster figure, and even in Norse mythology as Huginn and Muninn — Odin's ravens, Thought and Memory. Almost everywhere it shows up, it carries the same charge: intelligence, transformation, the thing that adapts and endures.

All six artifacts used in TOTEM:

Primary artifact: Rattle (Raven) — Xaadas (Haida), 19th century — wood, pigment https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/501263

Supporting artifacts, used as visual texture to enrich the world:

Totem Pole Model — Tlingit, 1820–40 — wood https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/319073

Totem Pole Model — Haida, 1875–85 — wood, pigment https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/319081

Totem Pole Model — Charles Edenshaw, ca. 1890 — argillite (carved stone) https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/319092

Ceremonial Board (Malu) — Sawos people, 19th century — wood https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/311159

Grere'o (Shield) — Solomon Islands, 19th century — fiber, shell, nut paste https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/310073

Four different original materials — wood, stone, shell, and fiber — all reforged into one material in TOTEM: metal, the last thing standing once everything organic is gone.

Silhouette preserved. Material is not.

FLORA project: https://app.flora.ai/join-project/dd0f3ef8-da87-4ca9-aa23-1ebe54a56d65

#floramuseumchallenge #flora #metmuseum #generativedesign

great work ❤️‍🔥

L’Empreinte — “The Imprint”

I wanted to explore the relationship we build with the objects around us — the marks they leave on us, and the marks we leave on them.

I started with François-Thomas Germain’s Coffeepot, made in Paris in 1757. What interested me was not only its form, but the world it represented: a time when rituals such as drinking coffee, serving and displaying silverware were surrounded by extraordinary care, craftsmanship and ceremony.

That made me think about our rituals today.

We listen through headphones. We gather around speakers. We work through laptops. We communicate through phones.

The objects have changed, but we still build habits, memories and relationships around them.

What if that same care, refinement and presence were applied to the products surrounding our lives today?

Rather than reproducing the coffeepot, I wanted its design language to leave an empreinte on a new generation of objects. Its flowing ornament, polished silver, sculptural curves and sense of preciousness became the basis for a collection of headphones, speakers, phones and laptops.

The aim was to imagine another evolution of modern design — one where ornament had never completely disappeared, and where technology could still feel crafted, emotional and precious.

Explore the full FLORA project here: https://app.flora.ai/view/js7b1ngr9rm9d9v0cv3vzc6tkx8dvnrf

I’ve also included a process video showing how the idea developed from the original reference into the final collection and world.

Instead of placing the objects inside a cold technological setting, I built an environment around stone, natural textures, open space, light and the sky. The tree-like elements and blue-and-white opening above connect the space back to nature, contrasting with the polished technology and making the environment feel more grounded and alive.

The people complete that world. They are different, but their gestures overlap: listening, working, communicating and sharing sound. Their presence shows how these objects become part of the body, the room and the rituals that connect us.

That is ultimately what L’Empreinte represents:

the trace history leaves on design, the trace objects leave on us, and the trace we leave on them in return.

A collection imagining what might happen if the refinement of the past became part of the design language we still spoke today.

Created with @FLORA for the FLORA Museum Challenge.

Original work: François-Thomas Germain, Coffeepot, Paris, 1757 The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Amazing approach and design work!