Dutch artist & designer Diederik Schneemann (1979, NL) is best known internationally for works that balance between art and design. Applied art in the broad sense of the word, which conveys more than aesthetics alone. His works are characterized by evoking astonishment, a memory or a sentiment. In his use of materials and forms, he usually uses existing objects and forms that carry their own charge or story.
His Lucky Charms series is about the things that we, as humans, cannot yet comprehend, measure, or prove. Luck is one of them. When something hasn’t been proven yet, it leaves room for imagination. This makes luck an extremely fascinating subject for Schneemann. From ancient times to the present day, people have attributed luck to objects. Think of a talisman or a horseshoe above the door, or lucky stones, etc.
“Whether luck exists or not, I often catch myself doing this: when I have a choice, I tend to walk around the ladder instead of going under it. During a game, I’m also convinced that if you have to roll the dice and you’re feeling good, motivated to win, you’ll roll higher numbers than if you’re tired and only participating reluctantly.”
If luck exists and is elusive, where and when do you have it? And where can it be found? If you try to roll a six with a die and fail the first three times, but then suddenly succeed, you could say you’re lucky. If you roll again, you’ll often find that it’s no longer a six. Has the luck suddenly vanished? Where has it gone?
According to Schneemann, that moment of luck is captured in the six on the die. “So I first roll the dice until I roll a six, and only those dice are incorporated into a piece. In this way, all the luck is captured in a single work, forming a lucky charm. That is why all the sixes are facing up.”
As long as no one can prove how luck works, the idea that luck is contained in a die is just as plausible as the belief that shards bring good luck.