Design Map · Eindhoven
Aegis
Graduation project by Arielė Ugnė Tarasevičiūtė at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
Growing up in Lithuania, Arielė Ugnė has lived with the persistent awareness of conflict on Europe's eastern border. That sense of uncertainty became more immediate as Russian aggression intensified, prompting her to question what protection might really look like. Working with discarded leather from a tannery in Tilburg, she revives the medieval technique of boiling leather to create a series of hardened forms that resemble both bags and pieces of armour.
Hung from meat hooks, the cracked, shell-like objects evoke vulnerable bodies as much as protective equipment. Although they appear strong, the boiled leather remains fragile, revealing the limits of the protection it promises. The collection reflects on the desire for safety in times of political uncertainty, while acknowledging that some forms of protection exist as much in the imagination as they do in the material world.