Mac Collins explores identity and empowerment through design

‘I’m still flying that flag,’ says designer Mac Collins when I ask him if his studio will remain outside the bubble of London. Currently based in Newcastle where he graduated from Northumbria University, Collins grew up in Nottingham, and he’s been championing the creative energy in these cities ever since he flew onto the scene.

A day prior to our chat, Collins had been teaching 10-year-old students how to build chairs out of wood. ‘They did quite a good job,’ he tells me. The school had a majority of ethnic minority students, and he hopes projects like these will allow younger people to understand the employment opportunities in furniture design as an industry, ‘it plants a seed,’ Collins says. 

Mac Collins: community, identity and radical representation

Community and identity are central to Collin's studio. Back when he graduated in 2018, the Iklwa chair was showcased at the graduate show, New Designers. Since then the design has developed its own legacy. ‘Iklwa is a throne to inspire empowerment in the face of oppression,’ reads Collin’s Instagram caption in 2018. ‘This was the first opportunity for me to fully explore identity in the work,’ Collins explains of how he thinks of Iklwa in hindsight. Until then, he had only written about the roles and responsibilities of Black artists, but this time, he was exploring it through making. The chair’s Afrofuturistic design alludes to socially critical issues, referencing the Windrush era and civil rights movements. ‘I wanted to create something that would elevate whoever was sitting in it,’ he says.

When Benchmark started manufacturing Iklwa, they didn’t change its character – only the colours and narrative have evolved. At Harewood Biennale in 2021, it arrived in a pink hue, titled ‘Thaneray (Tenroy)’ and set on a plinth looking out the window. The intervention was a way for visitors to contemplate the complicated history of Harewood House, being built on money garnered from slavery. Collins delved deeper into this with ‘Open Code’, a wooden games table with sand cast aluminium dominoes which urged the audience to address the historical link between Harewood House and the West Indian sugar trade – an act of radical corrective representation.

‘It’s an intimate space,’ Collins describes of his studio where he holds awards like the Design Museum’s Ralph Saltzman Prize, and the 2021 London Design Emerging Medal (opens in new tab). Aside from working with furniture brands like Vaarnii and Benchmark, his works have been shown with galleries like The New Craftsmen and Stems Gallery, fine art being an avenue Collins wants to explore further.

For Collins, building a strong dynamic studio is the goal. He’s already achieving this through experimenting with new materials, like cast aluminium and ‘upholstery which is new territory, and definitely an important step.’ Maintaining an output of installations, products and sculpture is key to ensuring his messages reach diverse audiences. In the background, he has been balancing between designing and making, but wants to create work that can be ‘experienced outside of the gallery environment too.’

It’s evident that Collins is cultivating a new generation in design. ‘I think the industry will be so much more interesting with people that wouldn't ordinarily have been exposed to this kind of world.’ Is the Mac Collins institute or educational residency on the horizon in years to come? ‘That’s the ultimate dream, I think we’re a little while away from that yet.’ Watch this space.

maccollins.com (opens in new tab)

A version of this story appears in January 2023 Wallpaper*, The Future Issue, available now in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today (opens in new tab)