Sarmite Polakova and PineSkins
In Latvia, dense forest covers nearly half of the country, making it one of Europe’s greenest nations. The trees, primarily consisting of pine, birch, white alder, aspen and conifers, make up around three million hectares of the land. The Latvian people have developed a close affinity with their forests, particularly with the abundant pine trees, due to the high economical and cultural value that they bring to the country. Historically in Latvia, pine trees provided food, medicine and tools but nowadays they are generally used by large national companies as a cheap wood resource. This mass cutting process destroys the forest fauna and reduces its diversity.
Inspired by the abundant nature in her homeland, Latvian designer Sarmite Polakova began to research raw materials and sustainable solutions that could reduce the waste generated by the tree cutting industry. After graduating from the Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) in 2015, she developed the project PineSkins; this is an initiative that uses the pine tree’s inner bark, that is discarded during mass tree cutting, to create a versatile leather-like material.
Working in collaboration with tree cutters, Polakova harvests the bark directly after the tree is cut down. Each piece of bark is unique; its width depends on the size and age of the tree, while its pattern is determined by the branches that have detached. After harvesting, the fresh bark is treated with natural ingredients to create a soft material, before being enhanced with colour pigments and natural wax.
PineSkins has been exhibited in various design exhibitions: Earth Matters curated by Lidewij Edelkoort at The TextielMuseum, Maison & Objet, Dutch Design Week, Design Week Shanghai and Milan Design Week. Her work has also been published in the magazines Frame, Ad and Elle Décor.
We had the exciting opportunity to interview Sarmite Polakova and learn more about her career and the PineSkins project.
PineSkins mat
You left your home in Latvia to study at the Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) ; tell us more about this and how it led you to create the PineSkins project.
I grew up in Latvia spending a lot of my time playing between the sea and the forest. I don’t think that I realised how much this experience influenced my identity before studying at DAE. When asked to identify something unique about ourselves during our studies, I noticed that my ideas always came back to the topics of nature and natural materials. The year that I spent in Japan learning about Japanese design and crafts, prior to moving to Eindhoven, was an additional influence to this. In Japan, I was carried away by their art of telling the story of an ordinary material, such as a crop, in such a beautiful and respectful way that encompassed its history and its uses. When moving to Eindhoven, what added to my longing for nature was the distant relationship between people in the city and the natural world; you are not allowed to pluck flowers or branches from the forests there as nature is more protected. In Latvia, you can pick anything from the forest, from berries and nuts to mushrooms. We even get our Christmas tree from the forest as opposed to the supermarket. Thus, when starting my graduation project, I wanted to translate my deep longing for nature into something contemporary by using a single natural resource - pine.
How did your passion for exploring raw materials begin and how importantly do you class material research?
PineSkins began during extensive theoretical, hands-on research on the parts of the pine tree that are usually discarded after cutting. In Latvia, people value nature and its resources very highly. In fact, our entire folklore is built around natural rituals. So, how is it possible that our contemporary society only values trees for their timber? To me, it seemed unfair that a tree that had been glorified in the past for providing food, medicine and fresh air now had its value shrunken to an economic price. The timber industry has become such a fast-paced, economy driven business that contrasts the slow speed of tree growing. I wanted to establish a more circular use of forest resources and it seemed natural to introduce an exclusive, hand-harvested material derived from the timber industry. I see using pine bark as an investigation into the tree cutting industry and Lativan forest resources, rather than a complete solution to a problem.
Research is important for me to learn about the material that I’m working with and to understand it. When you want to tell a story about a material that doesn’t come from a store shelf, its identity will begin to unfold during the design process.
We are currently witnessing more designers exploring alternative raw materials and natural byproducts in an attempt to develop new sustainable and circular processes. In 2015, you graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven and presented PineSkins. What challenges did you face when you started the project back then?
When I graduated in 2015, the trend of sustainability was only in its early development stage. There was some interest from the industry but, as it was so new, people were skeptical too. The focus was more on the sustainable material itself rather than on the whole design cycle. When looking back on this now, I am happy that I had this extra time to develop my project before more interest arose. I am the only designer harvesting and softening pine tree bark in this way, which means that I had to develop the whole system - from harvesting to processing to designing. It took time to find partners to supply the bark, to improve the technical process of developing the bark and, finally, to find a niche where the bark could fit in as a material.
PineSkins flexible leather-like material