The history of the Valencian fan has been closely linked to the province of Valencia for more than five centuries. Now, the fan, useful and sustainable, beautiful and functional, is in need of an overhaul.Design is the facilitator of craftsmanship, it is the new look at a know-how that needs to be renewed, it is the fight against a stagnation that is leading an art, that of fan making, to absolute irrelevance. In this deep-rooted relationship between the fan and Valencian culture, the exhibition “Design the air” is a unique occasion where craftsmanship and design, tradition and modernity come together, thus showing that the fan is an element capable of modernising itself, going hand in hand with technology and current processes, auguring a sustainable future for it with the passing of time. We were invited among other studios to re-invent this object. In the design of ZYLS we wanted to interpret the fan as a contraption in which its mechanism was hidden, almost like a magical object or an optical illusion. Since it is generally an object that is worked bidimensionally, we wanted to play with optical art and were inspired by the work of José María Yturralde and Victor Vasarely, where each slat is perceived as a 3D geometry giving the sensation of being an impossible figure.
