Vienna Design Week
Design has a complex relationship with age. While mass-produced design objects are often prized for their smooth, pristine surfaces, a community of designers finds inspiration in the passage of time. These practitioners embrace ageing as a creative force. They do this by allowing nature and the environment to shape materials, embracing transformation or drawing from familial knowledge and cultural memory.
Here, decay, rust, wear or other signs are resources to work with rather than flaws or wrinkles to smooth.
Anthropologist Tim Ingold reminds us that ageing and transformation are essential to sustained practices and life. “Sustainability is actually about carrying on… The first life of a tree is when the tree is growing in the ground and you are looking after it. The second life is when the tree is your house and it’s looking after you.”
Might we think of vessels, cabinets, tables, and more similarly—living continues in relation to us?
This FOKUS exhibition brings together emerging as well as established designers and practitioners exploring sustainable, careful and transformative practices. By recognising the ageing of materials, objects, and ourselves as interconnected, the exhibition invites us to consider care not only as preservation, but as ongoing relationship. When care is present, ageing is no longer a failure but a transformative process.
Works by: Valentin Bauer, Alice Bonanomi, Jakob Brix, Chai Dienn, Martina Dimitrova, Vilius Dringelis, Dawid Fik, Jeremy Hollister, Elo-Reet Järv, Magda Jugo, Annika Kiidron, Liucija Kostiva, Laurenz Kyral, Bertille Laguet, Dong Liu, Ejla Miletić, Cristiano Pereira Picão, Danilo Reis, Kati Saarits, Floa Sommer, Studio Hanna Whitehead, Studio Kiki Astner, Studio Kollektiir, STUDIOppl, Valentina Sturm, Ketli Tiitsar.
Curator: Sandra Nuut
Exhibition design: Hannah Oellinger & Manfred Rainer
Graphic design: Linnea Lindgren & Anna Rich
Project management: Laura Winkler
More info on the Vienna Design Week’s website
Photos by Joanna Pianka, Marisel Bongola / Vienna Design Week