The smallest expo with the biggest impact
Dutch Design Week 2021 – Van Abbemuseum
Ask yourself
Whilst DDW choses inclusivity as one of their themes for this year’s applicants, how inclusive is the design festival itself?
What does it cost to participate in DDW?
How can design festivals facilitate space for upcoming design talent in an inclusive way?
As a designer, exhibiting your work requires a large investment, in production, materials, renting space, as well as the many often unpaid hours it takes to plan and then attend a 10 day exhibition. For the majority of starting designers, this financial barrier is out of reach and therefore many voices are being excluded from the exposure that Dutch Design Week facilitates.
1m2 Collective has set out to visualise this problem by fitting as many designers as possible in 1m2 of ground space. The smallest expo with the biggest impact. In this exhibition you can see the works of 18 designers, from a multitude of disciplines that would otherwise not have been present at DDW. Through this positive protest we aim to stimulate a more inclusive design industry.
Alongside this, 1m2 Collective has begun to research what this financial barrier entails. The investment that designers make into their exhibition at Dutch Design Week is rarely transparent and in order to make a change the problem needs to be unpacked. 1m2 Collective aims to open the conversation and actively look for solutions.
Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven is the largest design event in Northern Europe and presents work and concepts from more than 2,600 designers to more than 355,000 visitors from home and abroad. It’s time for the Dutch Design Week to open up this network to a greater number of upcoming designers and facilitate space for upcoming design talent in a more inclusive way.
Exhibited works
Studio Julie Thissen – Time to reflect / Studio TOIMII – SURFACE / Daan Veerman – Digital Craft / Studio Verbaan – Minimal Marquetry / Thomas Kilian Bruderer – Cho’jac items / Anabel Poh – The Old School Club / Mike Vincent & Rose Groot – New Forms – Backpack / Tidhar Zagagi – PIXEL SHOE / Cristal De La Cruz – Anthozoa / Krafla – Kapi self-watering planter / SMELT – Straatvonk / Michiel de Jong – Do it Yourself / Marieke van den Belt & Thieu Custers – Print&Play / Rik van Veen – HDPE stool / Gaurav MK Wali & Yashika Munjal – Outside/Inside / Corradino Garofalo – Partenopea / Pierre Castignola – Copytopia / Lena Winterink & Harjinder Kaur – Personal Patterns of the Eendagszaak
Initiated by
Jeffrey Heiligers – Studio Jeffrey Heiligers
Sophie Balch & Tijn de Kok – ST–DUO
Jeroen van Veluw – Studio Jeroen van Veluw
Crowdfunding
www.gofundme.com
Photos: Roza Schous