Photo by Angeline Swinkels
During the opening of the Graduation Show at Dutch Design Week, the jury of the yearly Bachelor Awards announced of the René Smeets Award is Seok-hyeon Yoon (BA Well-Being) for his project ‘Ott/ Another paradigmatic ceramic’.
The Award
Yoon receives €2,000 in prize-money and a 3D-printed trophy by DAE alumnus Olivier van Herpt. He was was selected by a jury from sixteen outstanding Bachelor projects nominated for the awards. This year’s jury for the award was chaired by Wendel ten Arve and consisted of Gerard Baten (senior designer at DAF Trucks), Sjoerd Ebberink (CMF designer at Philips), Nikki Gonnissen (graphic designer, founder of Thonik), Mireille Meijs (senior designer at Royal Mosa) and Martijn Paulen (director of Dutch Design Foundation).
The René Smeets Award is presented each year to a Bachelor graduate who attains a high degree of professionalism both in the development of the design process and the final result of the graduation project. In light of these requirements, the jury concluded that Seok-hyeon Yoon’s project was a worthy winner. They state that: ‘it seems so obvious and simple, and that is the beauty of this project. The advantages of applying Ott, as Seok-hyeon demonstrates in his beautiful presentation, are manifold. It has the potential to be a game changer for the industry: the porcelain industry could become circular. It therefore pleases the jury to present the René Smeets Award 2019 to Seok-hyeon Yoon (see photo above).
Ott / Another paradigmatic ceramic
The jury explains that ‘Seok-hyeon introduces Ott, a natural resin from wood traditionally used to lacquer wood in his native Korea, as an alternative substance for glazing ceramics. Introducing a non-toxic, non-chemical alternative for glazing to the highly polluting ceramics industry is clever. The time Ott is harvested from the tree determines the gloss level of the glaze. The intensity of the colour is determined by the number of layers of Ott applied to the surface. Ott dries naturally and therefore the ceramics do not need a second shift in the kilns, as they would with glazing. And the fact that it dries naturally enables DIY maintenance or repair to damaged Ott glazing. Broken ceramic pieces can safely be recycled.’ Please read the full jury report here.
The nominees for the René Smeets Award were Anna Diljá Sigurđardóttir with ‘Earthly Delights’, Carissa Ten Tije with ‘Bottom Ash’, Anna Zimmerman with ‘EUPHORIC Magazine’, Clémence Favan with ‘LA KE BO’, Lotte Gulpers with ‘Swart Laeken’, Gal Keshet with ‘Hestia’ and Pauline Agustoni with ‘Mastectomy Caregiver’.
Previous winners of the René Smeets Award were Beer Holthuis with ‘Tactstrap’ (2018), Simon Dogger with ‘The Emotion Whisperer’ (2017), Bernhard Lenger with ‘Ecocide’ (2016) and Simone Post with ‘Vlisco Recycled’ (2015).