Post-DMY commitments in Berlin sadly meant that we couldn't attend the "Confrontations – Contemporary Dutch Design Live" event at the Vitra Design Museum.
Fortunately the Vitra Design Museum and their partner, the Dutch design platform Premsela, have released videos of the five projects, through which of course one also gets a feel for the sixth project - the exhibition design by catalogtree.
Shot by the experienced hands at designguide.tv the films offer a wonderful insight into the background to, realisation of and ultimate results of the five projects
And also show that the weather in Weil am Rhein was obviously just as bad as it was in Berlin that week.
Without question the deepest, most existential project was that conceived - almost literally - by Lucas Maassen in cooperation with Roche. Following on from a project in which he got his kids to paint furniture for him, Lucas Maassen crystalised his parents DNA, reproduced the hexagonal lab crystals as real crystals. And then got his parents to build a chandelier using the visualisation of their DNA as the building blocks.
Genius. Just genius.
Yes, its one of those projects that sits ever so slightly more on the art side of the fence than the design. At the moment. Lets wait and see where Lucas takes it.
On a much simpler level, Architecten 2012 created a public seating installation using less-than-perfectly-plated Eames aluminium chair frames combined with waste pieces of wood. They also appear to have strung an Eames "A" seat shell to tree as a swing - which probably impressed us more due to its almost obscene simplicity.
The Eindhoven based Italian design studio formafantasma meanwhile collaborated with charburner Doris Wicki to produce a range of charcoal water purification objects and subsequently served self-purified water together with - charcoal bread. Helps the digestion apparently. It turns up at around 5 mins 45 seconds in their film.
From the images we wouldn't use the terms "Layers of pleasure" to describe the charcoal bread; but that is just how Wieki Somers describes the deconstruction and subsequent consumption of the ca 100 kilo praline she created together with chocolatier Rafael Mutter. Which appears much more plausible. We don't think mere words could do the full experience that Wieki created justice; the film does however.
The final contribution to the week came from Dirk Vander Kooij who continued his exploration of designing objects where the final form can be effortlessly and endlessly changed as required without having to create new tools, moulds or otherwise alter the production process. His "Endless" project was one step in that direction, and for Confrontations he collaborated with automotive parts producer A. Raymond to devised a triangle that can be fitted to other triangles as required and then built into 3D objects.
And so although initially the triangle itself appears to be the "product" it is in reality just a simple building block from which the intended objects can be created. If you follow us....
The lights he created with PET triangles certainly looked like an idea worth developing further.
As we say we've only seen the videos, but from what we've seen "Confrontations – Contemporary Dutch Design Live" appears to have run very successfully and certainly produced five very different and very interesting projects.
The exhibition featuring the results can be viewed at the Vitra Design Museum Gallery until September 2nd 2012.
And the good news for all who can't make it to Weil am Rhein is that Premsela director Els van der Plas indicated that they are considering taking the exhibition on tour. Which sounds excellent. We're assuming the first show would then be during Dutch Design Week in October.... Watch this space at it were!
All "Confrontations – Contemporary Dutch Design Live" videos can be found at vimeo.com/premsela
And below we've taken the liberty to embed the video of Architecten 2012 recycling Vitra waste.
Film by designguide.tv for Premsela and the Vitra Design Museum
