Miniature houses on the cork cliffs
Designer Rosa de Jong creates micro-homes made of cork that are built on the sides of small cliffs. Her miniature environments are covered with artificial moss and decorated with model trees, which add charm to the tiny homes. Previously, she hung her works in glass tubes, which created the illusion that the works were floating in the air.
Her latest works hang between two panes of glass and are secured with thin wires. De Jong worked with her father to create wooden frames for the structures, which include small wheels that allow the owner to adjust the position of the floating islands. Two of her new works, Remembered and Imagined , are being shown simultaneously in a dual-city exhibition that opened on August 24, 2018 at Paradigm Gallery in Philadelphia and on August 30, 2018 at Antler Gallery in Portland, Oregon. You can see more of the Amsterdam-based designer’s miniature homes on Instagram and on her website Micro Matter .
In her Micro Matter project, de Jong also hand-crafted miniature environments placed in glass test tubes, creating the illusion that the objects are floating in mid-air, reminiscent of the flying castle in Studio Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle.
De Jong hand-builds her tiny buildings, each one looking like a pastoral home built on tiny cliffs. Miniature staircases curve through hand-painted cork, and her latest works hang between glass panes and are secured with wires. Her work is currently on display at Antler Gallery in Portland, Oregon, through August 30.
Encased in long, vertical glass blocks, the miniature landscapes create small scenes for the viewer to explore and imagine. Handcrafted from an eclectic mix of materials, including paper, cardboard, tree branches, and moss, the small scenarios present surreal architectural environments and structural impossibilities. A stack of buildings teeters on the edge of a small mound of earth that seems to float in midair; an urban structure sits in a transparent tube; a miniature paper water tower rises above a suspended patch of greenery. Take a look at the series of small worlds titled “micromatter” below, and see more about de Jong’s intricate process here .