At the Milan Fair in 1982, Jasper made a fortuitous introduction to the Milanese architect and journalist Bepi Maggiori through his then girlfriend Luciana Martinez. Maggiori invited him to Rastlos (‘Restless’), a meeting on design taking place in Austria. Maggiori had organised the event with Eichinger oder Knechtl, an architectural practice in Vienna. Gregor Eichinger, Marco Zanuso Jr, Massimo Iosa Ghini, Stefano Giovannoni and Andreas Brandolini participated in the meeting. At Rastlos Jasper met Andreas Brandolinii, with whom he later worked. He presented slides of his Handlebar Table at the meeting. Jasper took these photographs of Milan in the early 1980s.
At the end of Kingston, I travelled to Milan, again. I had one name in my address book, this was from an Italian girlfriend Luciana, who knew of this journalist that wrote for Casa Vogue at the time, called Bepi Maggiori. She had heard of him through a friend. At one of those Italian events for promoting a magazine, I think it was a Casa Vogue party or Abitare, I was talking to some people and said to one of them: ‘Do you know this guy, Bepi Maggiori?’ and he said: ‘That’s me.’ Just one of those lucky chances. I met him the next day and showed him slides of three pieces of work, which was all I had, and he said: ‘Well, tomorrow I’m going to Austria, we’re having a design meeting, called Rastlos, Design on the Border. Why don't you come.’ This was a meeting of Italian, Austrian and German designers. It was held in an abandoned 1950s motel, on the border between Austria and Hungary. Marco Zanuso Jnr offered me a lift and we drove all day to Vienna, then on to Burgenland.
We stayed for three days and showed our work and talked. It was a very good event, and important for me because it brought me in contact with other ‘Restless’ designers from all over Europe. It led to me living in Berlin the following year. I met Andreas Brandolini who became my contact in Berlin. The Salone has always had this quality of connecting people and in my case gave me my first break in the design world.
Jasper’s participation in the meeting also led to his inclusion in the Möbel Perdu exhibition in Hamburg later in the year and in the book Design als Gegenstand in 1983.
