The Design Lab at the Kunstgewerbemuseum: a platform for contemporary design
Press release from 02/22/2023
The series supported by the Kuratorium Preußischer Kulturbesitz comes to an end this Thursday with a final event - the opening of the building at the Kulturforum remains a central theme
After four years, the "Design Lab" discussion and lecture series at the Kunstgewerbemuseum ends this Thursday with a final event. Entitled "Round Table #6 - On Fibres and Mixtures" (23 February, 6 to 7.30 pm), it will focus on the installation "Yarns as Mixtures" in the exhibition "Design Lab #13: Material Legacies. It enters into a dialogue with the tapestry "Exotica III" by Ritzi Jacobi from the Kunstgewerbemuseum's collection. As part of the "New Tapestry" movement and the international exhibition "Textile Objects", which took place at the Kunstgewerbemuseum in 1975, Jacobi broke with artistic conventions, especially with decorative aspects of textile production, to explore tapestry as an ambivalent medium between sculpture, architecture and textile art. By weaving an unusual combination of fibres such as sisal, goat and horse hair - tangible and pliable - these tapestries suggest a model for the coexistence of materials, their techniques and their history in textile environments.
The Kuratorium Preußischer Kulturbesitz had supported the series in order to establish the Haus am Kulturforum as a discursive platform for debates on contemporary design. "We wanted and need to open up the Kunstgewerbemuseum - for students of all design disciplines, for craftspeople and for our visitors. With the collection behind us, we are required to provide answers to today's questions: How do we produce sustainably and economically, how do we want to live, how do we feed ourselves sensibly? This is exactly what the 'Design Lab' is all about," says Claudia Banz, Curator of Design.
In its thirteen editions, the "Design Lab" has found very different formats, ranging from analogue exhibitions and various publications to digital readers, from research festivals to workshops, from round tables to circular city tours. Exciting partners such as the Zurich University of the Arts, the Basel University of Art and Design, the Berlin University of the Arts, the Matters of Activity Cluster of Excellence at Humboldt University Berlin, the Hans Sauer Foundation in Munich, which focuses on social design and circular design, and the Desis Network founded by Ezio Manzini were able to be won over for the cooperation.
"The Prussian Cultural Heritage Board of Trustees was very happy to support the Design Lab. In doing so, it has not only helped to create a learning platform that is at the cutting edge of current design debates; above all, this project has also provided an important impetus for the future direction of the Kunstgewerbemuseum. We are delighted that this project has actually succeeded in attracting new target groups and thus many new visitors to the museum," says Helen Müller, Chair of the Board of Trustees.
The event will be held in English and admission is free.