Driving Dutch Design – Dion Soethoudt
ONE WEEK ABOUT Driving Dutch Design by curators Patrick Aarts Sen (BNO) and Katja Lucas (DDF)
Driving Dutch Design (DDD) is a program of ABN AMRO, Beroepsorganisatie Nederlandse Ontwerpers (BNO) and Dutch Design Foundation that helps talented designers get started in the world of entrepreneurship. Dion Soethoudt is one of them.
“My name is Dion Soethoudt and I am a conceptual designer. I was born and raised in a bi-racial family, with my mother coming from Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and my father from Willemstad (Curacao). Being neither black nor white, my mixed cultural background and the fact that I illogically turned out to be a ginger afro boy are inescapably prominent in my life.”
“It has shaped a unique and atypical way of thinking and designing that often results in humour. Humour is like tickling. In essence, tickling is an extremely light sensation of pain and in relation to the creative process it can function as an agent to push boundaries and challenge norms and make the story easier to communicate. My work sits in the tension field between comedy and tragedy. I strive to find productivity in the absurd, illogical and bizarre details of the mundane.”
“An example is the project Sleeping Productivity in which I utilise my otherwise wasted body movements during my sleep. It is part of an on-going research into what I call ‘living productivity’. This is basically a working title that encapsulates all of my projects, my methodology and my drive. I feel a need to constantly be useful and productive and am therefore trying to find ways to make the simple act of being a full-time usable product. My project I Like You And You Like I (ILYAYLI) was my first attempt to bring this to a 24/7 level. I’m still debating if I’m an attention whore or a serious researcher – probably something in-between. A designer perhaps.”
For more information about the masterclasses and the program partners of Driving Dutch Design, visit drivingdutchdesign.nl. You can register for DDD21 from September.