5 ALUMNI AMONG DESIGN TALENT SELECTED BY LIDEWIJ EDELKOORT
During the London Design Festival, the Carpenters Workshop Gallery is hosting The Graduate(s), an exhibition of work by budding talent from design academies across Europe. They were selected by former DAE creative director Lidewij Edelkoort.
The exhibition features work by graduates from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (France), ECAL (Switzerland), Royal College of Art (United Kingdom), LUCA School of Arts (Belgium), Royal Danish Design Academy (Denmark) and Design Academy Eindhoven (Netherlands).
Renowned trend forecaster, Edelkoort surveyed the work of recent graduates from 50 European design academies before selecting 15 individuals whose projects she calls ‘exemplary’ for the current zeitgeist. In their work she detects a similar fascination for material research and an organic design language.
“A fresh generation of designers are investigating their identity and their roots – sometimes literally going back in history to uncover authenticity and primal instincts,” comments Edelkoort. “They create hybrids between technology and touch, innovating materials, forging form and conceptualizing rituals for a humbler lifestyle fit for our ever-evolving times.”
Among the participating DAE alumni is Aurelie Hoegy, who obtained her Master’s degree in Contextual Design in 2013. She is exhibiting pieces from her Dancers collection. Hybrids of seating and sculpture, her steel, cotton and latex Dancers are designed not so much to serve a practical purpose but, as she puts it, ‘to free the mind’.
Another graduate from Contextual Design is Thomas Ballouhey. He is exhibiting pieces from his ‘Ways of Altering’ collection in which coating becomes construction. He took a sandblaster and sprayed existing objects together with a mix of glue and sand, evoking a possible distant past.
A further three recent graduates from the Contextual Design Department are included in the show. The Elemental Cabinet is by Kostas Lambridis. The stoneware carafe and earthenware well, water vessel, stand and humidifier are the work of Carlo Lorenzetti, who explores the relationship of the subconscious to the design of objects. Four pieces by graduate Martin Laforet examine the relation between moulds and casts.
There are even two Bacehelors-level participants, both 2016 graduates from the Public Private Department. Kathrine Barbro Bendixen is showing Inside Out, her light installation made of cow intestine, and Bram Vanderbeke his showing Extruded Expressions, a series of bearing columns with more than just a structural support function.
In commenting on the exhibition in TL magazine, LI Edelkoort noted that “a period of streamlined design for design’s sake has come to an end”. She puts this down to the financial crisis.
“Society is getting ready to break free of its materialistic past by replacing it with the materialisation of modest earth-bound and often recomposed materials. In this process, young designers formulate objects around sustainable ingredients, favouring timber, hide, pulp, fibre, earth and fire.”
The exhibition is part of London Design Week and is showing in the heart of the Mayfair Design District. An opening reception with Lidewij Edelkoort takes place on Monday 18 September.