HOPE – ILSE CRAWFORD & OSCAR PEÑA

Hope is a state of action. And effort is one of our most powerful catalysts for change. There is an optimistic message at the heart of our group exhibition on HOPE: that small changes can make big differences. The hopeful projects are designed by students, past and present, from the Design Academy Eindhoven departments led by Ilse Crawford and Oscar Peña.

Hope is a state of action. And effort is one of our most powerful catalysts for change. There is an optimistic message at the heart of our group exhibition on HOPE: that small changes can make big differences. Each of the exhibited projects – from Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE) students, past and present – is hopeful. In some cases, they offer hopeful solutions for specific aspects of local and perhaps personal concern. In others, hope comes from proof that a good idea can infect a system at an industrial, and even global scale. Importantly, the projects did not set out to change the world top down. They started with ideas to address issues immediately at hand. They offer glimmers of inspired thinking about how we might look at ourselves, our lives and our practices through a different lens, in a different light. A powerful aspect of life today is how fast good – not just bad – ideas can spread This is hopeful design. 

Designers sharing optimism

Kazerne’s founder and Creative Director Annemoon Geurts is Alumnus of the DAE department ‘Man and Identity’: “More and more design is in the spotlight as one of the driving forces in reinventing our society. Because at Kazerne we operate explicitly from a design perspective, we share the fundamental optimism of the designer. Often the impossible turns out to be possible, simply because the designer won’t take no for an answer. That’s why we are thrilled to show our visitors the hope that derives from the works and perspectives presented in this new exhibition.”

Themes: careful tech, local authority, being well

The exhibition is divided in three themes: Careful Tech, Local Authority and Being Well. As in every Kazerne exhibit, work of both upcoming and established talents is on show.

Careful Tech explores technology as a fascinating catalyst that touches nature, craft, ethics, biology, health, and sustainability to create a more humane world. With her project 5000times for instance, the upcoming talent Isabel Mager visualizes the hidden labor within the production chain of laptops. She portrays the paradox that arises in ICT, by showing the manual actions that one production employee performs in one day, often under appalling conditions. The project gives hope that awareness of the human face of production will change our attitude to overconsumption. The famous duo Studio Formafantasma breathes new life into an old technique, designing water containers from pig’s bladder. Craftica gives hope that we will optimize creatively éverything from a slaughtered animal – from head to tail – including fish skins and animal waste.

Globalization imposes systems that homogenize, with little regard for the sometimes centuries-old local culture or characteristics. The design displayed within the Local Authority context is empowering people and communities with solutions that are relevant to their own specific context. Dave Hakkens, for instance, brings his childhood dream Kamp to the attention. This offline community will be self-sufficient and collaborating on social challenges, such as making plastic recyclable for everyone. The project gives hope by facilitating communities to create local solutions to their problems. The recently graduated Colombian designer Simón Ballen, together with the local community and a glass blower of the Marmato region, built an oven to produce glass objects from a waste product of gold that used to be discarded into the river. The project Orfebre gives hope that waste products can also benefit and give pride to those that mine them for others.

Being Well addresses the critical importance to de-institutionalize our approach to life and death and to restore the human value in illness and wellness. How is it possible for instance, that people swallow vitamin D en-masse to compensate for a lack of sun, but at the same time pollute the oceans with tiny particles of sunscreen which leads to the death of coral? This research question resulted in the development of new manners of sun protection: the Sun+ collection of Buro BELéN (who were also responsible for the exhibition design). Brigitte Coremans’s biodegradable Paper coffins for stillborn babies give hope that they can be respected as human beings instead of treated as medical trash. This project taps into the topicality of a just recently changed Dutch law, enabling parents to register their dead born baby; an important recognition and ritual to support the mourning process.

Featuring

Alissa + Nienke, Clémence Althabegoïty, Atelier NL, Émilie Bordes x Yoon Seok-hyeon x Chae Soowon, Simón Ballen Botero, Buro Belén, Nicolette Bodewes, Aurore Brard, Mirjam de Bruijn, Nacho Carbonell, Brigitte Coremans, Teresa van Dongen, Envisions, Pauline Esparon, Formafantasma, Dave Hakkens, Nienke Helder, Olivier van Herpt, Mirl van Hoek, Studio Mieke Meijer, Studio Joachim Morineau, Bas Kamp, Amenda Kelders, Agne Kucerenkaite, Don Yaw Kwaning, Anne Ligtenberg, Isabel Mager, Sabine Marcelis & Brit van Nerven, Tamara Orjola, Reineke Otten, Eva Oyevaar, Mathilde Philipponnat, Madeleine de Pontevès, Sanne Ree Barthels, Martin Sallieres, Renee Scheepers, Leo Schlumberger, Makiko Shinoda, Ines Sistiaga, Pieter Städler, Stone Cycling, Super Local, Pascale Theron, Daan Veerman, Elin Visser.

Thanks

Ruud Balk Fotografie, Brabant C, Haller Brun, Buro Belén, Ilse Crawford, Cultuur Eindhoven, Design Academy Eindhoven, Studio Anne Lightenberg, Hugo Macdonald, Moon/en/co/, Oscar Peña, Provincie Noord-Brabant, Studio van der Zandt.