Textiel Factorij

 

Last week I visited the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden to get a special tour by the curator of the textile department Gieneke Arnolli.

This visit was part of the Textiel Factorij project, which is a cultural-historical project, about the mutual heritage between India and the Netherlands. During the Golden Age, there was a flourishing trade between the two countries and they influenced each other in various ways, such as the incorporation of chintz in traditional Dutch costumes. Together with Indian and Dutch artists, designers and Indian artisans this project aims to develop contemporary heritage products.

 

In the museum we had a look at the use of fabrics from India in traditional Dutch ‘klederdracht’ which date back as far as the 17^th century.

 

For this project I’m working together with Gunjan Singh to develop a collection of products, not only focusing on the skills of the craftspeople for making the textiles, but by creating interior products made from textile and wood showing the woodworking skills of the blockmakers as well.

Our specific focus is on combining the traditional crafts with digital fabrication methods, showing they can co-exist within one collection of products and to demonstrate that the value of the craft is not diminished by the development of the technique, but they each have their own value.

 

OLD COOL vs. No Name Design

 

In the past weeks we had two exhibitions at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering: OLD COOL and No Name Design.

 

One showing products from famous designers like Mario Bellini, Ettore Sottsass, Luigi Colani en Richard Sapper.

The other showing a collection of almost 1,000 industrial products of which the designers are unknown.

 

These exhibitions show two different sides of our profession; the well known 'design classics' which can be found in many museum collections, and the everyday products which a lot of people use, but nobody knows who designed them.

Both show very ingenious solutions and beautiful products, but the famous ones are much more appreciated than the everyday products, although the latter often have a much bigger impact on people’s daily lives.

 

I found both exhibitions very inspiring, as you can see both 'types' of designers aimed at designing an optimal solution for the assignment they had. Whether their name would be connected to the object or not. So which type of designer do you want to be?

 

Image Designboom

The OLD COOL collection was selected by Ger Bruens from the Henri Baudet Institute collection and was his farewell exhibition as he is retiring in August.

The No Name Design collection was brought together by the Swiss designer Franco Clivio and was the farewell exhibition of Prof. Bruno Ninaber van Eyben, who is retiring as well.