Dutch Design Week 2021: DAE Graduation Show
Another Dutch Design Week, another landmark Graduation Show by Design Academy Eindhoven. In response to rapid digitisation and evolution brought on by COVID19, the Academy eschewed an overarching theme in exchange for a navigational index through which to explore the themes, keywords, materials and methodologies of the 163 graduation projects.
The cause-and-effect relationship laid out by an index is between the sign and the signified; each word is symbolic of a connection to a larger context. In the same way, the projects themselves may each be read as a symbolic index of the design field, current times, and possible futures. The projects acknowledge that reality is not a universal given or a consolidated narrative but a contested territory; one that is open to rereading, alteration and reinterpretation.
Each and every project is viewable over on the DAE website. Here are six that stood out to us.
Iris van Hagen: Fading Mountain
As an avid mountaineer, Iris van Hagen sends out a message with this layered tapestry that she handmade herself from leftover yarns at the TextielLab - the mountain is fading.
This carpet is an abstract map of the Aletsch glazier, which is melting due to climate change. The ice and snow are represented by blue and white cords, whereas the underlying earth and rock have shades of red, orange and yellow. Using the carpet causes wear and tear; the blues will gradually give way to the earthly colours underneath. Handle with care and it will last longer – just like our planet. Whoever lives up to the United Nations’ climate goals is rewarded with a preserved piece of the mountain, which will become part of an art installation.
Marieke van Schijndel: Pour Your Heart Out
In these turbulent times, we can all use some words spoken from the heart. Which is why sharing our thoughts has never been so important. We enjoy the feeling when someone pays us a compliment. But are we just as willing to pay one to someone else? Instead of assuming that people know how you feel about them, you can make the first move and ‘Pour Your Heart Out’. Marieke van Schijndel devised a service that lets you mould a compliment for another person in the form of a ceramic object. You can shape the piece by using your own voice, stories and emotions. Pouring your words creates a memorable moment of appreciation not only for your loved ones but also for yourself.
Hi Kyung Eun: Strange Cohabitation
Imagine a place, created with love, a home for your digital self. A simultaneous sense of satisfaction and loneliness is experienced in the moment of both watching and becoming an image, piece of data or bit on a screen. It is this strange cohabitation of our digital and physical selves within us that struck Hi Kyung Eun as ironic while researching a variety of digital cultures. In response, she made a ceramic screen for the digital self to inhabit.
Both hard and fragile, lively and dead, realistic and distorted, the ceramic screen intertwines and collides with the digital body, allowing it to materialise. It is a space inviting acceptance and empathy for the existential quality of our digital existence.
Si Young Yang: Post-Replica, Post-Image*
Never before have we been so aware of how much copying exists, nor found copying so unavoidable when making anything. Post-Replica, Post-Image* is an ongoing exploration into how the nature and status of objects, images and creative practitioners changes when copying is destigmatised, and instead recognised as a legitimate creative methodology and tool for social inquiry.
Iconic design objects that are known almost entirely through images, have been replicated through different materials and techniques, emphasising the incomplete forms, functions, and styles that became a symbolic identity. Then the physical objects are copied back into the digital realm and the cycle repeats.
Niclas Ekwall: Resonance of Play
In his project, Niclas Ekwall invites participants to play and express pent-up emotions and individuality without inhibition. There are no rules and making music is as easy as plugging in a smartphone and swiping intuitively on the custom-made web-based synthesiser.
The question is, whose phone is playing which instrument and making which sound? How does our personal expression start responding to the sounds of others playing around us? How does this change with different people and different personalities? Since there is no right or wrong, The Resonance of Play invites us to become more curious and playful towards the social dynamics of self-expression.
Marlo Lyda: Scraptopia
Assuming the role of metallurgist, craftsman, and novice alchemist, Marlo cultivates a working method of extracting valuable qualities from waste metals. Inspired by the concept of Urban Mining – which asserts that all raw metals required can now be recovered from waste stockpiles rather than from the earth – Marlo presents her toolkit: a collection of artefacts and sensorial observations that encourage a renewed worldview.
In ‘Scraptopia’, Marlo Lyda reveals a world of her own making. One where salvaged or dismantled metal waste is treasured. Not just as the sole material source for producing tools for daily life, but also for creative investigation and self-expression. Assuming the role of metallurgist, craftsman and novice alchemist, Marlo cultivates a working method for extracting valuable qualities from waste items that are perceived as meaningless or useless.
The use of transformational techniques, such as electrolysis and lost wax casting, account for the look and feel of embellished artefacts from ancient civilizations.