The graduates of School of Form in Poznań will present their projects at the 11th edition of the Vienna Design Week. “It feels! Design for the senses” is the theme of the School of From exhibit, which will present sensory objects, depicted as the primary and natural method of communication with one’s own body and the surrounding environment.
The founders of the Vienna Design Week regard design as an essential part of the cultural production. The aim of the festival is to show that design shapes our material culture, our every-day life and our world.
Contemporary culture, dominated by visual stimuli, has pushed the other senses (hearing, smelling, touch, and taste) to a marginal position. Unjustifiably, because the set of all the senses is the most intuitive cognitive tool that helps people to understand the surrounding world. Nowadays, design extends beyond the categories of esthetic and beauty. Mainly, it focuses on the needs of the user and translates these needs into material forms, concepts and services. Designers have rediscovered the potential of the senses and of the human body.
“It feels! Design for the senses” exhibit presents a selection of graduation projects created by the alumni of School of Form, from 2015 to 2017. The projects represent different areas of design, such as Interior, Communication, Industrial, and Fashion Design, unified by research-based creative approach. Designers were inspired by the human body understood as the center of experiences, emotions, and knowledge about the surrounding world.
A feeling body, not a calculating body - is a common denominator of the exhibition. The feeling body, which is the source of pleasure and pain and which registers smell and touch, recognizes shapes and absorbs colors, has become the object of research for the designers. The body is seen as a physiological machine, an inspiration and the medium of expression. “Simultaneously, the body has become the center of observation and a powerful research tool”, says Agata Kiedrowicz, curator of the exhibit, designer, journalist, and a graduate of School of Form.
Some of the projects at the exhibition include: physiotherapeutic jeweler MIKO + (designed by Ewa Dulcet and Martyna Świerczyńska), clothes inspiring the practice of mindfulness by stimulating the body (project Soma, designed by Agnieszka Szreder), and a book reflecting perception of the world as seen by an Alzheimer’s sufferer (project Nie-pamięć [Un-Memory], designed by Sarah Wiśniewska). The exhibit provides an opportunity to test tactile objects (project Tocco, designed by Katarzyna Durlak), to discover the sound of mess (project MUSI Ernest Warzocha), and to play with educational 3D shapes (project by Monika Sobczak). The crucial element is the possibility of interaction with the objects at the exhibition. Visitors to the exhibit are encouraged to touch, taste, smell and listen.
Curator:
Designers:
- Barbara Bilon, Aleksandra Bloch, Ewa Dulcet, Katarzyna Durlak, Klaudia Filipiak, Kamila Iżykowicz, Agata Kiedrowicz, Patrycja Otachel, Monika Sobczak, Agnieszka Szreder, Martyna Świerczyńska, Ernest Warzocha, Sarah Wiśniewska, Joanna Witek
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