design exhibition

Review: GEO-DESIGN – Alibaba exhibition as part of Dutch Design Week

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Guest contributor and European correspondent Lara Chapman visits ‘GEO-DESIGN – Alibaba. From here to your home’ at the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven as part of a collaboration with the Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) for Dutch Design Week.

Wednesday, 7:39pm: Click. A new tab is opened. Tap tap tap. A few keys are pressed. Enter. Scroll. Select. Click. Tap tap tap. A query is typed. Ping, a reply is received. Click. An Item is added to the basket. Click. Details are autofilled. Click. *Ping*. Confirmation email is received at 7:47pm.
Friday, 10:19am: *Ding Dong.* A Door is opened. A “pen” scratches on glass. A package swaps hands.

This scenario seems unremarkable, possibly even mundane. The cycle of search, browse, purchase, repeat, is constantly taking place online. However, for research designer Martina Muzi, e-commerce is an “incredibly urgent topic”. The ease of our interaction with e-commerce platforms belies a complex and sophisticated infrastructure that is entangled with areas such as political diplomacy, psychology, logistics, algorithms and new forms of labour. E-commerce is shaping our everyday behaviours in subtle but undeniable ways. Furthermore, its forces are invisibly shifting and re-defining contemporary geopolitics.

‘Live Streaming’ by Jing He. Photography by Tommy Köhlbrugge, courtesy of Design Academy Eindhoven
‘Live Streaming’ by Jing He. Photography by Tommy Köhlbrugge, courtesy of Design Academy Eindhoven

At the exhibition ‘GEO-DESIGN – Alibaba. From here to your home’, nine multidisciplinary design researchers examined China’s largest e-commerce website Alibaba.com from diverse angles. Held as part of an ongoing collaboration between the Van Abbe Museum and the Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) as part of Dutch Design Week, the investigation-led project was conceived and curated by Martina Muzi and Joseph Grima. The selected designers, who are all alumni of DAE, had just two months from their briefing to the exhibition and undertook an intensive process of research, concept development and realisation. Read more →

Review: Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008-18

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Guest contributor and European correspondent Lara Chapman visits the ‘Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008-18’ exhibition at the Design Museum London.

A visual cacophony of objects including memes, posters, videos, balloons and even a fortune-telling machine come together in a narrative of power and protest at this exhibition. The eclectic collection of pieces traces the turbulent political climate of the past decade and the graphic milestones that have shaped, defined and resisted events in this period. The exhibition also charts recent technological developments and their effect on the production and dissemination of media. Graphic design is presented as a tool that can be harnessed by both the most powerful corporations and the most marginalised groups of society.

Women’s march Washington DC, January 2017. Part of Hope to Nope exhibition at Design Museum London. Images: Chris Wiliams Zoeica

The title of the exhibition references the iconic ‘Hope’ poster designed by Shepard Fairey for Obama’s 2008 election campaign and various appropriations of this, including the viral ‘Nope’ memes of Trump. Between these two moments of American politics, the world has been shaken by a series of charged situations including the Occupy Movement, The Arab Spring, refugee crisis’, LGBT rights, and climate change, which are all represented in the show. Read more →

Highlights from Melbourne Design Week

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By Penny Craswell

This year’s Melbourne Design Week centred on the topic “design values”, covering furniture, objects, installations, publishing and architecture. Apart from the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), the other key venue for exhibitions and events was Watchmakers, a temporary exhibition space in Collingwood donated by the owner of Piccolina Gelateria, who will be building their kitchen and gelateria in the space following the event. Folk Architects was responsible for its transformation, stripping back the space to its original patina and applying subtle use of mirrored Laminex to provide an ideal site for the experimental exhibitions within. Here are some of the highlights of this year’s event.

1. 26 Original Fakes

This exhibition at the Watchmakers venue by young designer/curators Dale Hardiman and Tom Skeehan of Friends & Associates challenged 26 designers to modify a fake Jasper Morrison Hal chair as a statement on Australia’s replica industry. The resulting show explored a huge range of issues, from authenticity, to ethics, to material concerns, with a dose of humour thrown in. I was very pleased to write the accompanying exhibition text myself – see my separate post. More on 26 Original Fakes.

Tom Skeehan (left) and Dale Hardiman (right), curators of 26 Original Fakes at Watchmakers, part of Melbourne Design Week. Image: supplied
Exhibition view of 26 Original Fakes. Photo: Wayne Taylor

 

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Object Future exhibition shows fresh face of design

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By Penny Craswell

Design exhibitions have always played second fiddle to art exhibitions. Perhaps this is because, in order to sell their work, the artist must exhibit it, whereas the designer can sell it via a manufacturer who makes and sells it for them.

Jonathan Ben-Tovim's Up-Down Light
Jonathan Ben-Tovim’s Up-Down Light

However, the benefits of design exhibitions cannot be underestimated. Apart from online, an emerging designer may have no other way to show their work when first starting out.

For the second year in a row, Object Future gives emerging designers the opportunity to exhibit, this year at Allpress Studio in Melbourne. The co-curators of the show, emerging curator Suzannah Henty and emerging designer Dale Hardiman, have sought out some exceptional design from some great fresh talent this year. Read more →