SPONDē

Brand Concept • Creative Direction • AI Image Direction

Wine photographed as something that escapes. Not poured, not drunk, not held.

The category has one gesture: the glass raised, the toast, the table, the friends. Nobody spills. I wanted to build the opposite. Glasses with holes in them. Sheets that take the stain and keep it like a pattern. Grapes growing on a tree instead of a vine, under gauze.

(all images & videos are AI generated by me)

Close-up of a person's face with their eyes closed, showing steam or vapor on their eyelids and small bubbles on their skin.
A wine glass with holes in it, suspended against a blue background with thin wires crossing behind it.
Collage of art installations and scenes involving wine and grapes, including wine glasses, a person with blood and wine on their face, grapes spilling from a table, sculptures, and outdoor scenes with clear skies.
Collage of art installations and scenes involving wine and grapes, including wine glasses, a person with blood and wine on their face, grapes spilling from a table, sculptures, and outdoor scenes with clear skies.

Waste As Ritual

The Name

SPONDĒ is Greek for a libation. You poured wine onto the ground before you drank any of it, for the gods, for the dead, for whoever was owed. The first and best part of the jug went into the dirt on purpose.

The whole ritual is built around waste. The wine that mattered most was the wine nobody tasted.

So every glass in this campaign is perforated. A ring of holes around the bowl, small and neat, cut clean. You can fill it. It just will not stay.

The World

Cotton sheets, hung and laid flat, outdoors, hard midday sun. The sheets do the work Christo's sheets did. Wrapping a thing removes the detail and leaves the shape, and a wrapped figure reads faster than a dressed one. Rope, tying, the whole body reduced to a silhouette. The tree keeps its grapes but loses its leaves under gauze.

White cotton was the practical choice too. Wine on white cotton soaks, spreads, and dries to a different colour than it started. Every stain in these images is a record of how long ago the wine hit it.

A transparent wine glass with holes inside, floating against a blue sky background, connected by thin wires or strings.
A person with closed eyes submerged in water, with bubbles on their eyelids, nose, and lips.
An art installation of stacked wine glasses with red wine, some glasses tilted or falling, against a cream-colored curtain background.
A surreal artwork of a wine glass lying on its side, with a ribbon of red wine flowing out and forming a spiral. The shadow of the glass and wine is visible on a white background.
A statue wrapped in white cloth with black grapes and wine stains on the fabric, against a clear blue sky.
Art installation of hanging wine and wine glass sculptures against cream-colored draped fabric backdrop with wine stains on the floor.
A large, abstract, tree-shaped sculpture made of translucent fabric with printed branches and leaves, standing in a dry grassy field under a clear blue sky.
A person with a cloth covering their head and face, seated on a chair covered with a cloth, holding a glass of red wine, with red liquid spilling onto the fabric and floor, and red strings hanging from the glass.
Grapevines being inspected or tested inside a large white structure, possibly a greenhouse, with two people working at a table surrounded by a large pile of bunches of grapes.
A glass of red wine resting on a red wire wine holder with spilled red wine on a concrete surface, with a beige fabric backdrop.
A metallic chair in a dry, open field with dark purple and red grapes cascading over and around it, with a white cloth extending from the chair across the ground and a clear blue sky overhead.
A person with wet hair holding a glass of red wine in front of one eye, with red paint or blood streaks on their face and neck, against a plain white background.

ON THE MAKING

I generated and directed every image and videos myself. No photographer, no crew, no set.

Every project starts with two or three references that do not match. Christo wrapping a coastline. A Greek libation. A wine glass with holes in it. That is the part I like, and the direction is what makes it hold together.

Then a lot of testing. Things that work, things that do not, images that get thrown out. What survives gets built into a campaign with a story and a flow.

Sometimes it is only one picture and the rest builds itself from there. This one started with a stain on a sheet.

A wine glass filled with red wine placed on a surface with red liquid spilling from the glass and beneath it, creating a puddle.