It takes time and space for ideas and design to breathe, and for observors to understand them. And this is the main reason why design collective Dutch Invertuals located themselves in the slightly remote Isola district, away from the noise and crowd of the Salone del Mobile, for their fifth presentation at the Milanese furniture fair.
Led by curator Wendy Plomp, who founded Dutch Invertuals six years ago, the collective has gained a reputation for influential and experimental design. It has grown into a network of 44 designers and has realised over 100 projects on 14 themes; each theme being presented at Milan’s Salone or Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven.
The exhibition is the product of an open discussion among creative professionals, largely coming from Design Academy Eindhoven, ‘What I notice is that a lot of designers don’t want to be superstars any more; they don’t want to be famous. They like to team up, work together, open their sketchbooks and discuss with other designers,’ says Plomp. The group gathers for bi-weekly meetings in Eindhoven, ‘it is necessary to work in this way, to push design to a new direction, to create total new objects, or new in a way of thinking,’ she adds.
Titled ‘Advanced Relics’, the exhibition reflects on the significance of physicality in today’s increasingly digital and virtual world, and how creativities and aesthetics fit into this. Leaving behind the ‘old world’, it explores new rituals and ways of finding comfort, presenting a collection of ‘contemporary relics’.
The exhibition showcased works by nine studios. In addition to works by Bastiaan de Nennie, Carlo Lorenzetti, Daniel de Bruin, Martina Lasinger and Nel Verbeke, is 'The Synthesis Monolith' by Chinese designer Hongjie Yang, a group of aluminium sculptures showing the transition between its natural stage and the intervention of humans and machines; Australian Studio Truly Truly’s Abide Vessels made of copper-infused resin invites visitors to perform an imagined ceremonial action; Dutch designer Tijmen Smeulders’s hanging Antenna looks into the behaviour of human interaction with light, resulting in a sleek aluminum, tube-shaped light sculpture; and The Ceramic Symphonies installation created by Dutch Studio Edhv, which uses gravity and evaporation to capture natural aesthetics onto unique ceramic plates.
Dutch designer Bastiaan de Nennie used various 3D-scan techniques to digitalise materials and objects as modelling elements to create portraits of his fellow designers in the show, which were printed as postcards
'Omnipotence Of Thought' by American designer Carlo Lorenzetti, a group of clay objects (pictured) to connect human to nature physically and emotionally
Pictured: detail of Carlo Lorenzetti's clay objects
'The Ceramic Symphonies' installation (pictured) created by Studio Edhv uses gravity and evaporation to capture natural aesthetics onto unique ceramic plates
'Fosfeen' (pictured) by Dutch visual artist and designer Daniel de Bruin: ‘I have always been fascinated with the sun, the ultimate relic of our time. My work tries to invoke the delicate balance between its beautiful light and blinding brightness’
The Synthesis Monolith by Chinese designer Hongjie Yang, a group of aluminium sculptures showing the transition between its natural stage and the intervention of humans and machines
Dutch designer Tijmen Smeulders’s hanging 'Antenna' (pictured) looks into the behaviour of human interaction with light, resulting in a sleek aluminum, tube-shaped light sculpture
Australian Studio Truly Truly’s 'Abide Vessels' (pictured) made of copper-infused resin invites visitors to perform an imagined ceremonial action
Belgian designer Nel Verbeke dives into the melancholic nature of relics, a group of three objects including a clock with a charcoal dial that diminishes with the flow of time
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Dutch Invertuals website
Photography: Ruy Teixeira
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