feed, an exhibition based on the idea that design can nurture life, is bringing young Turkish creatives in an intersection of art, architecture, design, and technology. Curated by Bilgen Coşkun and Dilek Öztürk, founders of IN-BETWEEN Design Platform, the exhibition is structured around three themes which are vital in today's design discourse; ‘local to global’, ‘creative use of space’ and ‘upcycling’. The exhibition will take place at Brussels Design September between 4-30 September 2018, with the immersive works of DAY Studio, Ömer Pekin, and Pınar Akkurt.
Design is inextricably linked to every aspect of our lives, therefore, we believe that the quality of design profoundly affects our quality of life. With society‘s every great leap forward, designers must fulfill an increasingly varied range of roles—especially now, as centuries of experience are being rethought in relation to disruption.
Kilim, Pınar Akkurt
As designer and educator Victor Papanek foresaw in 1971, ―the design of any product unrelated to its sociological, psychological, or ecological surroundings is no longer possible or acceptable. Although we are indeed witnessing much innovation, it is also a challenging time for designers, faced as they are with problems including climate change and the lack of natural resources.
The idea of the exhibition is concretising the relations between man-made nature and nature itself through creative disciplines. We cut our relationship with nature as soon as the industrial production started under the name of a revolution. Today we try to re-bridge our bonds with nature, using the tools which cut that relation in the previous century. Can designers nurture the nature through design? For Papanek, designers are the most dangerous breed for nature by choosing materials and processes that pollute the air we breathe and by creating whole new species of permanent garbage to clutter up the landscape. But he also believes that an ecological worldview could change the design.
AVLU, DAY STUDIO
Today, it is in need of new typologies for presenting the design as designers all over the world play a crucial role in the reconfiguration of ways of sustainable ecosystems. There must be a greater concern for and a deeper understanding of nature, and this will be a holistic approach to design.
The exhibition is structured around three themes which are vital in today's design discourse; upcycling, bringing the local references together with global design language and creative use of space. The exhibition showcases the three selected young Turkish design studios which also present the vibrant design scene of Turkey in the global context by combining the local heritage with the references of contemporary design discourse.
The selected Turkish design studios are coming from diverse fields; founders of Day Studio Doğanberk Demir and Yeşim Eröktem are product designers, Ömer Pekin is an architect and artist, Pınar Akkurt is an artist, designer and maker. Through a wide array of transdisciplinary practices, the exhibition provides an in-depth look into Turkish design context in which designers capture their views on society through the subject matter they explore, the medium and tools they employ as well as the aesthetics they manifest.
DAY Studio is founded by Doğanberk Demir and Yeşim Eröktem in 2015 following their masters degree at ECAL. The studio works on furniture, lighting, table-top accessories, textile designs as well as industrial products and packaging design. Yeşim and Doğanberk fuse their cultural background with a contemporary approach to create simple and functional everyday objects. Believing that the local design references and making-techniques enrich the global design discussion and increase users' life quality, DAY Studio’s work is a perfect example of local to global as they translate the natural form into crafted geometry by taking references from Istanbul's rich crafts culture.
AVLU is an everyday design objects collection by DAY Studio, focusing on local craftsmanship in Istanbul. AVLU focuses on the product culture and the handcraft potential of Istanbul especially focusing on the Grand Bazaar area. The aim is to start up a dialogue about the contemporary design language of our locality. The project consists of a series of products designed by DAY Studio and made by the local craftsman. It is an on-going process of documentation of the existing local product and craft culture and making new contemporary design objects through this experience.
Ömer Pekin lives and works in Los Angeles and Istanbul. He received a masters degree in architecture from SCI-Arc, Southern California Institute of Architecture and a bachelors degree from Akademie der bildenen Künste Wien, Austria.
Ömer Pekin develops digital imagery to explore digitally enhanced architectural compositions as art. Through utilization of emergent systems and other computational algorithms he has developed a unique form of visual practice that evolves between art and architecture.
The works within ‘Color & Materiality’ employ color to create materials; merging the physical and tangible properties of matter with the visual ones. Color is, then, not a representation of a matter but the matter itself. The materiality of the color cannot be mimicked in any other medium. It is a surface that triggers sensations and creates a mood. Usage of color as a material creates fields. These fields, with small variations in hue, saturation, and brightness, create compositions that are not reducible to visual perception.
Pınar Akkurt, a.k.a. Pınarita is an artist, designer and maker focusing mostly on installations. She creates new forms and systems out of everyday objects. Her keywords are color, transformation, upcycling.
‘Teatime' -a pattern made out of saucers- and 'Kinetic Sini’ -a rotating large copper tray- are part of the installations made for Karaköy Restaurant in Istanbul. It is a series of installations only made out of kitchen utensils, regularly ongoing since 2011.
‘Kilim’ is a rug woven out of jar lids, inspired from the ancient Anatolian rug motifs. A new weaving technique was invented for the project, a custom tool was designed for the purpose and ancient motifs were reinterpreted through upcycling daily discarded materials. Akkurt is also the founder of Upcycling Library, a platform for research and production of samples of upcycling.
Kinetic Sini installation at Karaköy Restaurant in Istanbul, Pınar Akkurt
The exhibition aims to suggest new critical strategies focusing on the creation and expression of three themes that are not only considered valuable in the global design world but also to get a glimpse into the minds and practices of selected Turkish designers. In this way, it is an exploration of the alternative ways to nurture life through design.
feed is conceptualised and curated by IN-BETWEEN Design Platform, founded by Bilgen Coşkun and Dilek Öztürk, which brings creative ecosystems together with social and cultural environments around the design discussion.
This exhibition is realised with valuable contributions of Turkish Airlines and hosted by Permanent Delegation of Turkey to the European Union.
Links:
http://day-studio.com
https://omerpekin.com
http://pinarita.com
https://www.turkishairlines.com
http://avbir.dt.mfa.gov.tr/Mission
http://www.designseptember.be
