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10.30.20

Excerpt: Exhibition

With Degree Shows Cancelled, A Stockholm Museum Offers Students the Chance to Show Their Work

With the pandemic in mind, the Stockholm-based Möbeldesignmuseum — which was founded in February 2018 by collectors and design world insiders Kersti Sandin and Lars Bülow — decided to create a platform for final year students from Beckmans, HDK-Valand, Konstfack and Malmstens. Called Ex-Works, the exhibition features work by 23 designers from the four schools, and the curated works are uniformly strong.
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06.17.20

Offsite Online

In SAIC’s Whatnot Studio — As in Life — Utopia is an Impossible, But Ultimately Worthwhile, Pursuit

There’s no such thing as utopia. Coined by Thomas Moore in his 1516 book of the same name, the word "utopia" combines the ancient Greek roots for “not” and “place.” It’s a fiction, a nowhere, or at least a not-here-yet. But its perpetual absence — or deferral — shouldn’t leave us discouraged; its inaccessibility is precisely the point. “Utopia is an impossible ideal,” says designer Pete Oyler, “but one that designers continue to pursue. I think it's a testament to the persistence of the imagination and the ongoing quest for something better.” It was with this in mind that Oyler, along with designer Jonah Takagi, taught this year's Whatnot Studio within the School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Designed Objects program.
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02.29.20

Saturday Selects

Week of February 24, 2020

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week, proof that floor-to-ceiling carpet is having a moment, an freshly optimistic take on the armchair, and some solace to art-loving Angelenos.
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Dutch Design Week 2019
10.29.19

Fair Report

30 Projects We Loved from Dutch Design Week 2019

A feeling of urgency pervaded this year's Dutch Design Week. It was clear from many of the works on show that the focus of the designer is shifting; no longer is good aesthetic judgment and a well-designed clever product the aspiration. Ego and vision are going out of style, to be replaced by attempts to understand the inter-connected systems in which design sits.
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07.12.18

Up and Coming

Seven Designers to Watch from RCA’s Ceramics & Glass Program

Is the Royal College of Art London's most important ceramics incubator? When we look back on years of covering the design school's graduation show, our favorites have invariably come from that school's department of Ceramics and Glass. So this year, we cut right to the chase, and are featuring our favorite projects from the program.
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07.02.18

Up and Coming

The RCA Grad Who Hacked a Piece of Gym Equipment to Create These Slumped, Ceramic Vases

For Philipp Schenk-Mischke’s recent Process Plug-Ins project, the designer looked at traditional modes of manufacturing, assembly, and use, and introduced physical "plug-ins" that might distort the final outcomes. For his BTM Ceramics — a collection of distorted, high-gloss vases — the still-wet, malleable pieces are placed on a body vibration plate and gently jiggled into more slumped, organic forms.
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SAIC x Sight Unseen OFFSITE
05.23.18

Sight Unseen OFFSITE

Five Talents to Watch from SAIC’s Ceramics Exhibition at Sight Unseen OFFSITE

This year, two recently famous American designers themselves — Pete Oyler of Assembly Design and Jonah Takagi of Atelier Takagi — launched an intensive studio class in the SAIC Designed Objects program, aimed at taking students on a holistic journey from concept to exhibition, with the ultimate goal being a showcase of ceramic drinkware; the results were on view at this weekend’s Sight Unseen OFFSITE.
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06.29.17

Up and Coming

Six Talents to Watch from RCA’s 2017 Graduate Show

Despite continued uncertainty about the effect Brexit might have on applications from students abroad, this year’s Royal College of Art graduate show was a celebration of global design talent, showcasing some of the best emerging talents from the EU and beyond. Here are six of our favorites.
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04.13.17

Excerpt: Exhibition

ECAL Students, Playing With the Distinction Between Object and Art

An exhibition curated by an artist closely affiliated with the Fluxus movement — John M Armleder, to be exact — is sure to be liberated from traditional constraints. “More Rules for a Modern Life,” a selection of pieces by ECAL students in industrial design and fine arts that debuted last week in Milan, turns out to be just the case.
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