31-10-2022
Ask me if I believe in the future: an exhibition about optimism at MK&G in Hamburg
How would we like to change the future? What ideas, questions and strategies do designers require in order to come up with visions of a better future, and produce applicable solutions? Ask Me if I Believe in the Future is the title of an exhibition that closed on October 23 answering the questions Hamburg’s Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe put to curator and critic Maria Cristina Didero, who worked on Ask Me if I Believe in the Future with six designers from four different countries.
Last week saw the close of Ask Me if I Believe in the Future, an exhibition which opened on June 30 at MK&G (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe) in Hamburg, Germany. The project responds to a number of questions the museum’s directors asked of Maria Cristina Didero, a world-renowned curator from Milan. She in turn put the questions to Greek designers Eleni Petaloti and Leonidas Trampoukis, founders of Objects of Common Interest, Carolien Niebling of Switzerland, Erez Nevi Pana of Israel and Enrica Cavarzan and Marco Zavagno of Italian multidisciplinary studio Zaven.
How would we like to change the future? What ideas, questions and strategies do designers require in order to come up with visions of a better future, and produce applicable solutions? Didero gave free rein to the designers in answering these questions, who approached the task with very different visions and methods. But the curator was surprised to see that all the solutions proposed for the exhibition demonstrated an "astonishing coherence - a shared faith in the future".
"In these unparalleled times of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in light of the current conflict in Ukraine, we could not help but wonder about the fate of the next few generations. While the title of this exhibition might sound simple, we have probably all thought about it at least once in our lives without finding a precise answer. This exhibition contains a seed of hope, just like the word future itself; it is as much about the future as it is about us," Didero explained to Jincy Iype for STIR.
Maria Cristina Didero’s brief for the designers was simple, almost banal, but very important, challenging and introspective. The curator chose to give the designers free rein, without limiting their influence on the process of developing the works, because in the end, the answer to the question of confidence in the future must be open to any kind of response.
As a result, Object of Common Interest came up with an installation called Teahouses for domesticity revolving around human beings’ need for vicinity and community. While Erez Nevi Pana’s Homecoming is a vision of a futuristic scenario in which humans, animals and nature all manage to live together side by side on an Earth which is finally protected, and the Italian designers of Zaven responded with Why Not? but only if we can work together. Carolien Niebling, who calls herself a "food futurist", created Future-Proof Plating, showing natural foods that we do not yet include in our diet.
In conclusion, the response to the question "Ask Me if I Believe in the Future" was positive, though as Maria Cristina Didero remarks, she was not at all sure of this when the project began: "We wanted to frame this question to the designers to stimulate action, in response to the subject, their idea of the future and how design can become a flag bearer for change - when we posed the question to them months ago, we did not know that we would receive positive answers and solution oriented initiatives across the board". The curator goes on to explain how wonderful it was to discover that, even without interacting with one another, the designers all based their work on a positive thought: "Every action we take as individuals is already a leap into the future. Our human instinct to design, organise, solve, is based on the idea that there is going to be a tomorrow for which we are designing now".
Francesco Cibati
Captions
01 - Teahouses for Domesticity, 2022. Works: Objects of Common Interest; Photo: Henning Rogge
02 - Teahouses for Domesticity, 2022. Works: Objects of Common Interest; Photo: Henning Rogge
03 - Future-Proof Plating (Detail), 2022. Works: Carolien Niebling; Photo: Henning Rogge
04 - Why Not? (Detail), 2022. Works: Zaven; Photo: Henning Rogge
05 - Homecoming (Detail), 2022. Works: Erez Nevi Pana; Photo: Henning Rogge
06 - Maria Cristina Didero - Photo: Stefano Ferroni
07 - Standing Stones, 2020 ADAM – Brussels Design Museum. Photo: Mathijs Labadie
08 - Teahouses for domesticity, 2022 Rendering: Objects of Common Interest
09 - Future-Proof Plating (Detail), 2022. Works: Carolien Niebling; Photo: Henning Rogge
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