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Hello, a few weeks algo I popped on a train to visit Somerset House in London to look at the Design Biennal exhibition
. The exhibition showcased the work of different artists exploring the theme Utopia to different countries.
This is part one.
This exhibition was very interesting and everything had an element of fascination to it. I won't go through everything I saw but will pick a few things that I found interesting and things I didn't find interesting and explore why - I'm going to write a part one and part two for these. I actually don't like much from this exhibition when looking at the the work but I liked how in a way it took you to another place, it felt enchanted. Many of the installations where interactive, you could walk through the work, touch it, hear it and be apart of it.
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Things I found interesting
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| Top left to right: Austria - LeveL . Indonesia - Freedome | Bottom left to right: Japan - A Journey Around the Neighbourhood Globe . The Netherlands - Design Diorama The Archive as a Utopic Environment |
Austria - LeveL
This installation is interactive where you can move within the mobiles. As you move you may push them around or as you walk create a draft that will move them and the LED lights will dimmer. They seem so delicate and fragile that you don't want to move around within them and look at their beauty from the outside. This installation is all about balance and reflects on how the idea of an utopia couldn't work as it's not a stable reality.
Administering Body - Austria Design Net
Design Team - Mischer'traxler Studio
Curator - Thomas Geisler / MAK Vienna
Supporting Bodies - Federal Chancellery of Austria - Arts and Culture; Advantage Austria; Austrian Cultural Forum London
Indonesia - Freedome
At first thoughts to me this was some sort of alien planet and the bowl at the top was their spaceship. It even made noises like a spaceship as it span round and flashed blue, it was even hovering over the dome to give it the illusion of defying gravity to suggest an ''open staellite''. Some of the balls of coir also span around and to me these where like little homes for the aliens.
To my disappointment this installation was not inspired by aliens but by a Utopian enterprise - the 1955 Asian-African Conference, held in Indonesian - Bandung. It is to represent the continuing search for the principles in Bandung Charter; independence, equality, humanity and peace.
Administering Body - Indonesia Agency for Creative Economy
Design Team - Adi Purnomo, Irwan Ahment, Bagus Pandega
Curators - Danny Wicaksono, Diana Nazil, Hafiz Rancajale, Hermawan Tanzil.
Japan - A Journey Around the Neighbourhood Globe
When I first walked into the room I saw the inflated human figure, titled ''Napping Traveller'' which was very impressive due to it's large scale but I didn't feel that impressed by the rest of the room. It wasn't till I turned around to leave the room that I saw the photograph framed on the wall above a fire place. In my eyes this photograph was the moon and was amazed by it's beauty. This photograph is actually an apple, titled ''Constellation of Apples'' and if you take a closer look around the room you can see the elements of the apple. There is an apple in the glass box with glass figures of ''Napping Traveller'' and as you can see in the photograph of ''Napping Traveller'' there is a tv in the bottom left with an image of an apple, this room is a perfect example of development and exploring ideas.
This installation by Yashiro Suzuki promises to change the way you look at everyday things, which in fact it did for me looking at the photograph of an apple and thinking it was the moon. Suzuki likes to look at objects in a different view, a Japanse concept called ''mitate'' or ''Looking at on thing as if it were another''. Suzuki says ''When they leave the room, visitors' way of looking at the world will have changed''.
Administering Body - The Japan Foundation
Design Team - Yasuhiro Suzuki (Artist); Noriko Kawakami (Curatorial Advisor); Hiroshi Kashiwagi, Motomi Kawakami, Kozo Fujimoto, Noriko Kawakami (Advisory Committee)
Supporting Bodies - WOW inc.; Mediaturge Inc; ROCKET Project (Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo)
The Netherlands - Design Diorama: The Archive as a Utopic Environment
This installation is a foam diorama of it's own creates's homes and is about the power of objects and the designers relations to the world. This display explores how designers keep their own archive, but also asks questions on how institutions collect history.
For me this installation makes me feel very confused about how I feel about it. This one is my favourite out of the whole exhibition, I love how clean and comforting it looks yet oddly unsettling. I feel as though the unsettling feeling is created by the lighting making it dreary and also the fact that it feels sanitary as if it was a babies bedroom (created by the blue colour) or a hospital room. Depending on how you feel about babies bedrooms and hospital rooms will probably alter how you feel about this installation. Though the fact that everything is the same colour makes it very satisfying. I feel like we don't know enough about the objects to see what the narrative is and I think that this piece would have been more powerful if you could walk among the objects creating a better connection between them and you.
Administering Body - Het Nieuwe Instituut
Design Team - Studio Makkink & Bey
Curators - Studios Makkink & Bey
Supporting Bodies - Embassy of the Kingdom og the Netherlands in London; Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science
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Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. I will be doing a part two to this post talking about the things I didn't find interesting so do come back and have a look next week.xx
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