A special evening discussion on design, community, authorship, and beauty with The Haas Brothers and The Haas Sisters of Monkeybiz—together for the first time in the United States—and Andrea Lipps, Assistant Curator and co-curator of Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial.
The Haas Brothers is the partnership of designer and twin brothers Nikolai (Niki) and Simon Haas. Playful and confrontational, they create furniture and sculptural objects that explore themes of nature, sexuality, social equity, and authorship. In 2014, they began collaborating with Monkeybiz, a nonprofit income generating bead project who works with craftswomen from the Khayelitsha township outside Cape Town, South Africa. The bead artists lovingly call themselves “The Haas Sisters” and together they create the expressive, fantastical, and joyful Afreaks collection. This series of beaded flora and fauna appears in Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial.