umum+ is a London and Hangzhou-based studio founded by curator Dan Huang and architect Shutong Fan in 2025 at their home in Kensal Green, London. We work across curation, spatial design, publication, object design, and situated research under one theme: Craft.
Craft is understood not as the preservation of tradition, but as a mindset for approaching the world. We attempt to reintroduce, recontextualise, regenerate, and readapt craft for a contemporary life context, bringing it to a wider audience who might not have been interested in craft before.
(More...)
We collaborate with a cross-disciplinary group of creatives: makers, artists, writers, graphic designers, architects, archaeologists, and filmmakers. Together, we translate overlooked materials, objects, and designs into curated encounters framed by displacement and recontextualisation. We approach design as a connective framework. Each project develops from attentive research into its cultural context, constructing a ground where stories surface and unfold through sustained dialogue.
umum+ grew from umum objects. The original idea was to adapt a private living space into a communal space for contemporary craft. Now, the practice has grown into an object gallery, umum objects, and a studio, umum+. The studio has been invited to host exhibitions and events in London, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Hunan.
Our collaborators include: Saltriver Studio, Arisu Ange, Slowdance, Gegend Gallery, Common Divisor, Zephyrus Art, and Storyage.
(Less...)
umum+ grew from umum objects. The original idea was to adapt a private living space into a communal space for contemporary craft. Now, the practice has grown into an object gallery, umum objects, and a studio, umum+. The studio has been invited to host exhibitions and events in London, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Hunan.
Our collaborators include: Saltriver Studio, Arisu Ange, Slowdance, Gegend Gallery, Common Divisor, Zephyrus Art, and Storyage.
(Less...)
Project
- Used to Use #2: Garden, Kitchen, Game
- 7-day Wonder II: Isobel Napier
- 7-day Wonder I: Marian Bijlenga
- Drifting Home
- Ready-to-Pot
- British Household Curios
- Used to Use #1: British Silverware Curios
- Zhàngwù: Youyou Wang
- Crafted Escapes
- The Art of Repetition
- umum x common divisior
- Reading Room #2
- Reading Room #1
Library
Chen Bao: A Conversation with Clay and the Past
Contact
77 Fulham Palace, London, England, W6 8AF
Coming Soon
We welcome portfolios from graphic designers, architects, product designers, sound artists, construction consultants, stage designers, filmmakers, and craft researchers. Please share your work with us at hr@umumobjects.com
info@umumplus.com
Press
press@umumplus.com
Type: Exhibition
Client: Gégend
Ceramist: Chen Bao
Location: London, UK
A clay pot is never just a pot. In the kitchen it withdraws into the background, working quietly in the cooking process; on the table it returns to presenting food, inviting hands, becoming the centre of a gathering. Philosopher Martin Heidegger described this duality: tools that disappear in use as ready-to-hand, and objects that stand before us as present-at-hand. This exhibition explores how a clay pot moves between these states. Ready-to-Pot brings ceramist Chen Bao’s work to the UK for the first time, tracing how his pots, rooted in Chinese tradition yet shaped by life across regions, warm daily life through the flow between use and presence.
Team
Curators: Huang Dan & Fan Shutong
Producer: Chen Ma
Contributing Writers: Tanya Lee, Chen Bao, Chia Jung Lee
Creative Director: Shutong Fan
Visual Designer: Shutong Fan
Exhibition Designer: Gan Haoge