Droog30. Design or Non-Design?
The ‘tribute installation’ Droog30. Design or Non-Design? at Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam, celebrates thirty years of Droog, the loosely-formed Dutch design collective led by Renny Ramakers and Gijs Bakker that made its international debut in Milan in 1993.
Meaning ‘dry’ in Dutch, Droog subverted the norms of form and function to push the boundaries of design by reappropriating found objects, making the ordinary extraordinary and introducing new approaches to designing that redefined design itself. Often employing a ‘dry’ wit that has now become mainstream, Droog was arguably the last of what might be considered a movement in design; a claim predicated on the fact that what soon followed was the rise of the internet and its decentralizing effect on design discourse.
Tribute installation
Curated by Maria Cristina Didero and designer Richard Hutten, a founding Droog participant, Droog30 includes a selection of objects produced under the Droog umbrella within an installation of comments crowdsourced through social media that together help tell the collective’s story. In this analog representation of today’s online environment, Droog30 reflects on the group’s impact on design while implicitly asking if such a collective influence would be possible within today’s cacophonous digital landscape.
Says Aric Chen, the general and artistic director at the Nieuwe Instituut: “Droog brought its dry wit and subversive tendencies to a global audience — and design would never be the same again. The group managed to make its mark on the world thirty years ago as the last pre-internet design movement, so when we look back over its history, we wonder how far we’ve come since then, and where we are heading from here.”
Droog30. Design or Non-Design? is a collaboration between the Nieuwe Instituut, Droog, and Triennale Milano and was previously on display at Milano Design Week / Salone del Mobile in Milan.
Exhibition ‘Droog30. Design or Non-Design?’
Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam
May 2 to August 27, 2023
nieuweinstituut.nl
Photography: Gianluca Di Ioia