More Than Wrapping: Material Memory and the Intelligence of Things

I’ve been returning to the question of packaging—not just how to make it sustainable, but how to make it resonant.

In recent projects, I’ve worked with materials that hold more than utility. For Horizons of Sustainability, a conference on ecological futures, we created a tote-picnic cloth hybrid. It unfolded into a table setting, then folded back into something to carry. A shift in role. A small, purposeful transformation.

We also designed a notebook made from old cement packaging paper, a reference to the island of Kornat—where, not long ago, locals would reuse leftover cement paper to write letters. A kind of accidental archive. Memory through necessity. Design born from resourcefulness, not aesthetics.

For a local saltworks, we wrapped glass jars in dramatically dyed papers—each sheet hand-colored with natural pigments. Ekološka sol u staklenci omotana umjetničkim papirom bojanim prirodnim bojama. Each was unique. The outer layer wasn't a label—it was a presence. The paper became part of the story. The salt came from Solana Ston, the oldest working saltworks in Europe, mentioned as far back as 1333, under the Dubrovnik Republic. Salt as a ritual, not just a resource.

We did the same with Kornati sage honey—packaging it in glass, accompanied by a short written text about the history of honey from those islands, the language used to describe it, and the people who tended to the bees.