The last week of October in the city of Eindhoven the Netherlands has been known for years that the Dutch Design Week takes place. As long as I can remember this has been one of the main events for design where people from all over the region flock over to, making it a great promotion for the city.
Back in the days this design week orginally was born from a group of enthousiasts from the 'Industrial Design' direction coming from the university. The cherry on the cake was always the graduation exposition held in the 'Witte Dame' building in Eindhoven where the students could showcase their products and what they made and explain the product to the potential consumers.
I loved the concept and would every year to see what the students had made now to see where the future of functionality and design would be.
At a certain point the focus shifted from the Industrial design course more to the Design Academy as a main player and that made a big difference in what course the main focus would shift to.
I remember going to the exposition years back and finding a scenery of all kinds of arty weird designy things that I had no idea off anymore. Rememer...at first I always went for the 'products', functional stuff that looked nice.
DDW.nl by Liang-Jung Chen (陳亮融) en Shuei-Yuan Yang (楊水源)
These are the things I liked. Everyday products in a nice jacket which looks stylish without loosing the functionality of the product. Stuff is designed to actually be used. Especially coming with the current use of sustainable materials or making it into something circulair....That is the future.
But maybe that is also why I have a bad relationship with art in general. I am not really good in just looking at something because it looks nice. I like it when something can be used as well. And that is where the itchy feeling comes in with this design week in the form that it has now.
I guess to me there is a big difference between design and art. Especially since design from my perspective is there to make life better in a way...Art on the other hand is expressive...But is it also necessary? Holland has as a lot of government funding for art.. But what does art 'exactly' do and does it really need to be subsidised?
DDW.nl by Carolina Trinker
For instance...I understand the idea where this art from Embryo comes from. People being hooked to screens and cables and is this de way we want to live. But what does it do now that this is made. Does it make de world a better place? Are people going to use this? Or is this just a visual form of expression and is that something that you find it worth that your government money is invested to?
I remember a couple of years back I went to the graduation exposition and there was a setting made which I totally did not understand. I asked the designer if he would explain to me what his intentions were with his work and what he meant with it. With that idea I hoped that I would also find more appreciating for the setting.
His reply was... 'This is soooo design, someone like you would never understand it'
But wasn't that always the idea....to share your ideas with the public? Art and design is confusing to me
