Okolo: Craft

(jiří macek) Okolo, a group of curators that includes our editor colleague Adam Štěch, has prepared a sample of contemporary Czech design pieces, the creation of which played a significant role in the upcoming Design Supermarket. The collection is about people who roll up their sleeves with increasing frequency.

One can find a vise, a lathe, and scissors at the installation. The designers represented include such young stars as Klára Šumová, Daniel Pošta and Anička Kozová next to classic designers such as Maxim Velčovský and Antonín Hepnar. I am sure you know these individual objects. Nevertheless, they now meet in this form, probably for the first time. The theme is evident: We still have our hands.

As curator Adam Štěch explains: “The CraftDesign exhibition tries to record the current trend of the mutual approach of experimental design and traditional crafts, which we perceive as a fundamental element for the production of objects that were usually created in limited editions or as a unique piece. This characteristic draws them further apart from the traditional perception of industrial design. ‘The craftsmanship approach’ results from the need of individual designers to be as close to the birth of their visions and ideas as possible and makes them become producers and collaborate with craftsmen on every specific piece. Thus, the creation of objects moves from factories to the studios of the designers themselves, whose final product gives a more emotional and authentic impression. It is, of course, the production tool used by the designer when implementing his/her vision. It becomes a sensitive personal link between the idea and the implementation itself. Thus, the exhibition presents several works by the younger and older generations of Czech designers, which are exhibited in the company of the tools with which the individual objects were made. However, they do not represent authentic designer tools, but a somewhat conceptual context that enables us to imagine the way in which the objects were created. Thus, CraftDesign not only presents the above-mentioned trend in the production of contemporary design, but also demonstrates a selection of industrially produced quality tools by means of which designers implement their ideas and visions and spark a polemical debate between industry and crafts.”

The CraftDesign exhibition can be seen at Design Supermarket from December 10-13 in the ČSOB building, Perlová 4, Prague 1 and subsequently in Dox by Qubus.

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