Konstantin Achkov and Petar Zaharinov, Puzzles for Living

A good many brainteasers are put down as puzzles, starting with the purely abstract (mathematical, logical) and ending with the entirely material and spatial. What they all share is the hidden connection – sometimes outright mystical – between the pieces one starts with and the final solution.
Spatial puzzles are an attempt at overcoming the limitations of the three-dimensional world. At first they seem impossible and difficult but later turn out to be founded on a simple principle and succumb to an astonishingly rapid assembling process. It is this type of spatial “knots” that prove inspirational for the people whose professions require practicality and realism – designers, architects, joiners. Unlike the task of the inventor of classic puzzles, theirs is perhaps the opposite: making the joint as simple and easy as possible without being obvious, and preserving a portion of the mystery of orthodox puzzles. It is probably this mysteriousness that conveys life and warmth to these geometrical structures, making them suitable for the space of our home.
The “puzzles for living”, as you can see in the current exhibition, are two types: the put-together puzzles and the interlocking ones. The former type requires you to locate the correct place of each piece; the latter wants you to figure out the connecting method. In both, each piece matters – constructively and functionally.

                                                                       Petar Zaharinov