Under the heading Wahlverwandtschaft (elective affinity), young Dutch designers present their concepts and projects.
The original scientific term Wahlverwandschaft is given to certain forms of reaction between chemical components, which, upon coming into contact with a newly-added element, relinquish an existing bond and form a new one with the new element.
Transferred to design, this refers to the unconventional additional of materials, an experimental combination of elements that initially appear to be uncombinable. It also implies the freely-chosen affinities of the designers, and the energies thereby created. The Dutch design scene seems noticeably intertwined and interlinked, but, as the exhibition shows, it is also full of individual creativity.
Isn’t decorating a room with flowers designing? Isn’t choosing the clothes you put on everyday designing? What is the exact occupation of people who are called designers?
Revised Craft is the newest collection by Dutch product designer Sjoerd Vroonland. When developing the series, Vroonland asks himself the questions: is a chair purely functional? Is it a showpiece with a visual story? Or is it an expression of technical know-how and therefore representative of its era?
Pepe Heykoop presents new prototypes of his Stitch chairs and the Sputnik light. The Leather lampshades, of which he has recently setup a productionline in Mumbai are also represented, they support the Tinymiraclesfoundation which brings streetchildren to school.
Cinderella’s Chair is a follow up of Anna Ter Haars project Buitenbeentje. Prostheses of glass, like a prosthetic leg, custom made for each chair. Glass is a malleable material when heated, so glass was blown onto the chair, providing every chair with its own unique Prosthesis.
Construction and materials are David Derksen’s main sources of inspiration. He creates something new through unconventional applications. While the designs are not strictly functional, their appearances are directly connected to their construction. In this way he aims to express the beauty of the material and the way it is produced.
Dutch designer Erik Stehmann intends to make design more playful and dynamic, fascination for new materials and a craving for useless experiments are his major inspiration.
an products, like people, fertilise each other and grow into something new? Amba Molly has designed a system of moulds based on human cell division.
In 2010 Klaas Kuiken graduated from ArtEZ School of Arts in Arnhem (NL). During his graduation project he searched for irregularities in mass-produced products. Which he found in glass bottles. By heating and blowing these bottles one by one he makes them into unique objects.
