Lanzavecchia + Wai Designers

This plastic back brace, embellished with a red koi fish as if it were a tattoo, reimagines what assistive technology devices might look like. Medical devices are often perceived to be necessarily sterile and functional, leaving aside the possibility that they could reflect an individual’s aesthetics. (As a counterpoint, consider eyeglasses, which are also assistive technology devices, and the wide variety of styles available.) Lanzavecchia + Wai’s responds to this absence with a variety of devices including braces, canes, and crutches. “Here disability aids become a stage to discuss, understand, and cope with disability, illness, and human frailty. . . . [M]oulded and tailor-made around the body, [back braces] are a cumbersome second skin. They are reinterpreted with the aim of transforming them into objects of desire and representative skins.”