'come to my place' at experimentadesign amsterdam 2008

a hanging light made from green, plastic watering cans hangs in maxim velcovsky’s ‘bistro prague’ image © designboom

held at the westerhuis gallery by marcel wanders, ‘come to my place’ is an exhibition which looks to our homes and how they have become a self-portrait of their owners. today, instead of local traditions and culture influencing our personal spaces, designers and the media are the ones who are guiding us to express who we are. ‘come to my place’ is an exhibition of design teams from eight different cities which have been given a cell space to share their interpretation of their culture, defining their ‘place’ as a hybrid between who they are and where they come from. included in the exhibition were maxim velcovsky, tobias wong & arik chen and folkform.

maxim velcovsky was representing his city through an installation called ‘bistro prague’. he proposed a room filled with traditional czech objects, from those mass-produced to one-off pieces. the notion of a bistro is meant to be a reference to food and drink, the primary way in which we experience culture as a society.

bistro tables and stools are set-up to display traditional czech objects image © designboom

image © designboom

‘I said I wasn’t doing it’ is an ‘oprahfied’ space by tobias wong and arik chen image © designboom

tobias wong and arik chen from the US turned to the popular american talk show host, oprah winfrey, for their inspiration. ‘I said I wasn’t doing it’ is an installation which speaks about oprah’s influence on north american culture. highlighted is her annual thanksgiving event, ‘favorite things’ in which the the media icon unveils her choice products of the year. in their space, wong and chen have included products from oprah’s ‘favorite things’ as well as a selection from her popular book club.

UGG boots and american popcorn are included in oprah’s ‘favourite things’ image © designboom

image © designboom

folkform’s installation ‘layers of paint’ image © designboom

swedish design team folkform’s ‘layers of paint’, questioned whether or not it was possible to take something which is viewed as ugly, require a high status when it is placed in a different context. how can we add value to the mundane things which we use on a daily basis? their installation tries to control the aging process of various materials such as cracks, blistering and peeling.

more experimentadesign amsterdam 2008: http://www.experimentadesign.nl four weeks of freedesigndom: http://www.freedesigndom.com maxim velcovsky: http://www.qubus.cz tobias wong: http://www.brokenoff.com folkform: http://www.folkform.se