NOMADIC FURNITURE 3.0 // New Liberated Living?
12 June–6 October '13
In today’s world, do-it-yourself culture is practically omnipresent: be it fashion, furniture, cooking or communication—hardly a single area of everyday life and our material culture has not been swept up in the DIY revolution. With its emphasis on the field of furniture design, the exhibition NOMADIC FURNITURE 3.0. New Liberated Living? is the first to examine this movement situated on the threshold between the subcultural and the mainstream including a look at its historical context: as early as the first half of the 20th century, home-built furniture came to be regarded as a suitable approach for socially conscious and (since the late 1960s) ecologically sustainable design.
Today’s so-called prosumer culture (i.e., the collaborative interlocking of producers and consumers) entails more than just fundamental changes in the creative process. The end-user’s semiprofessional involvement in design and production touches on a wide range of socially relevant agendas and issues such as the criticism of mass consumption, looming resource scarcity, liberation from both the dictate to consume and norms of design, and—last but not least—the democratization and decentralization of automated mass production in the interest of improving sustainability.
NOMADIC FURNITURE 3.0 offers a comprehensive overview of contemporary DIY furniture culture while using numerous historical references and examples to also present a clear picture of the developmental history of the DIY movement from its nascence in the early 20th century to the present Web 2.0 culture.
MAK Table, Recession Design / Paola De Francesco & Joao Silva, 2009
Jerszy Seymour – amateur workshop, 2010, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Nicola Enrico Stäubli, Foldschool, 2007
Studio Tord Boontje, Rough and Ready, 1998 © Annabel Elston
Ania Rosinke and Maciej Chmara (chmara.rosinke), 2,5³, 2013
Matali Crasset, Digestion N°1, 2000
