Idealistic design to re-think a better world! Welcome to London Design Biennale

For the first year takes place the London Design Biennale this month at the Somerset House. Installation from 37 countries around the world will showcase their idea of Utopia.

The exhibits look at existing and future solution to create an idealistic and happier world, like wise more hypothetical interpretations of utopia.

The exhibition is held at the Somerset House, the venue is fantastic and partly make the Biennale itself.

Some of the installation are really connected to the main topic, really imaginative some more provoking and difficult to understand…

While some of the installations appear convoluted and tenuously linked to the theme, there is also imaginative, thought-provoking and intuitive work, which proves design’s role in both tackling world issues, and helping to highlight them.

Here are my favorite from the show:

Japan: A Journey Around the Neighbourhood Globe
By Yasuhiro Suzuki

        

Japan’s offers a clever look at how design can be interpreted in alternative ways.

The  Artist Yasuhiro Suzuki bases his piece on the Japanese concept of “looking at one thing as if it were another” and distorts everyday objects to make them appear as different things.

Visitors will be look at strange objects which create optical illusions, such as spinning portrait images, an hollow tree stump which has water dripping into it from an unknown place in the ceiling every few seconds.

The piece looks at the endless possibilities of design, and also spreads the message that utopia can be found in being open-minded to different points of view. ( add notes from exhibition)

Lebanon: Mezzing in Lebanon
By Annabel Karim Kassar Architects

 

Lebanon was lucky enough to have been given the entire outdoor River Terrace space of Somerset House  – the perfect setting for a colorful, authentic imitation of the streets of Beirut.

Lebanon takes on Utopia  as an interactive pavilion. It looks at how utopia can sometimes be found at home and give visitors the chance to temporarily absorb themselves within the culture of the country.

Visitors can expect a microcosm of Beirut – authentic food and orange juice stalls, a barber, a cinema filled with hand-made mattresses and carpets and an area where they can play backgammon. A giant map of the city covers the floor, a reference to the fact that the city was until recently mainly navigated by landmarks rather than its map system.

Turkey: The Wish Machine
By Autoban

 

Turkey’s modern-day wishing well is a simple but poignant way of inspiring hope in a country which has been at the pinnacle of the migrant crisis.

Visitors can write their wish on a piece of paper, roll it up and slip it inside a futuristic pod, then step across a tunnel of transparent hexagonal tubes to drop it into the suction-powered machine.

They’ll then see it spiral through the tubes, and even make its way around the West Wing of Somerset House, where the tubes have been laced across the walls.

The destination of the messages is unknown. The installation incites hope and consideration for others through design. It brings an ancient concept ” make a wish”  into 2016 and openly invites visitors to interact with the display.

The London Design Biennale takes place at Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA from 7-27 September.

Special thanks to Damn Magazine to invite me to the  London Design Biennale and take part at their event organized by the Belgian Embassy at the Somerset Terrace!

 

Soviet Hippies: peace, love, and freedom in the Soviet Era!

 

 

I have always been interested and fascinated by subcultures. Yesterday I came across an amazing exhibition about the  Estonian Hippies  at the Red Gallery in Shoreditch.

“Soviet Hippies” curated by  KIWA and Terje Toomistu  is the result of the anthropological study and recorded interviews with fifteen people from the hippie generation in Estonia. The Soviet West which was distinguished by its unique scene of rock music and bohemian vibe.

Historically the Khrushchev Thaw (1956‒1964) that followed Stalin’s repressions brought a breath of fresh air to some places in the Soviet Union. In Estonia, which is often regarded as the Soviet West, the access to Finnish television and foreign radio broadcasts was the key source of divergence.

The “free world” were rocking in the spirit of the slogan “Make love not war.” The stagnation that accompanied Brezhnev’s rule (1964-1982), further marked with the events in 1968 in Prague, did not leave much hope for political progress nor the feeling of individual freedom. Thus the generation that grew up in late 1960’s took the world as a big lie and decided just to deal with their own things.

The hippie movement that captivated hundreds of thousands of young people and evoked various social movements in the West in the 1960s had a profound and lasting impact on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Affected by perceived Western freedoms and inspired by various spiritual traditions, a counterculture of flower children developed in the Soviet Union. Disengaged from the Soviet official ideology of proclaimed atheism, authoritarianism and Soviet morals, the Soviet hippie movement found its expression through rock music, the cult of love, pacifism, actual and cosmic travel, and self-fashioning that was generally considered unacceptable for Soviet citizens.

In the shadow of strict rules and harsh repressions, a colorful crowd of artists, musicians, freaks, vagabonds and other long-haired drop-outs created their own world, their own underground system that connected those who believed in peace, love, and freedom for their bodies and souls.”

However, the mere trend toward hippie fashions, long hair and great rock concerts was enough to make the Soviet authorities concerned. In the eyes of the KGB, the hippies were poisoned by degraded Western influences, posing real danger to the regime and the moral construction of Homo Sovieticus.

Highly reccomended!

Exhibition opens to the public from Saturday 3rd of September until September 18th From 12noon until 6pm daily. FREE ENTRY!

RED gallery: 1-3 Rivington St, London EC2A 3DT

More information:
Soviet Hippies exhibit homepage: http://www.hipid.ee/english/
Soviet Hippies forthcoming documentary film: http://www.soviethippies.com/
Red Gallery website: http://redgalleryldn.com/soviet-hippies-photography-exhibition-friday-sept-2-2016-1900-to-sun-sept-18-2016-1700/
Powerplant Bookings website: http://powerplantbookings.com/
Kiwa’s website: http://www.kiwanoid.com/;
KULTUSFILM: http://www.kultus.ee/

Louis Vuitton, Giovanni Lindo Ferretti and Miss Italy

The beginning of September is always full of good intentions. I plan to do detox diets and yoga at least three times a week that even Maharishi, start  doing  Japanese / Korean cooking course, raising unicorns and change the world. Among the many good intentions of September one of them will be the  detoxification from Facebook, I promised myself not to read  at least comments under the various newspaper’s news, but especially  do not comment never again do not involucrare myself in  philosophical, political or pseudo ethical  battles with anybody …  my brother is right when says that, facebook is a little bit like the Sala Parigi * …

First big news in the Italian online newspaper and most commented on facebbok in September was obviously the comments of Miss Italy to a question worthy of an old-fashioned competition like Miss Italy. “In what period of the past you would have liked to live?” Miss Italy answered 1942 (’42-45 Italy was in the second world war). she also said as women she should not have do the  military service, she would rather stay home. How to destroy years of feminism and common knowledge that belong to basic education in a nanosecond, but does not really matter she has long legs, I am sure that one day she would inherit the Gelmini’s ** crown.

The second big news of September Italian online newspaper, which all everyone commented, even those who have never listen one of his songs, it is that Giovanni Lindo Ferretti ** went to the gathering of right party, Atreju. Poor Atreju a rebellious kid, intelligent, became the symbol of right Italian youth.

Lindo Ferretti  was a Soviet punk saying in his lyrics stuff like “disobey the ritual” “I want to take refuge under the Warsaw Pact …” he represented, I mean in part, my years of rebellion and anger against a system that thought was too conservative and retrograde. Sadly the end of the heroin addiction, in this case, has done more damages than good. After Ratzinger, seeing him posing with  Giorgia Meloni *** was shocking. As if I had seen Kurt Cobain duet with Aqua or worse with the Lady Gaga. I forgot Vedder with Beyonce’… but here we talk about Beyonce’.

In total disappointment, very faithful to my line and ignoring the disgust  I have always had for Louis Vuitton bags, the symbol of bourgeois ladies of the province. The typical bag of the tedious aunt with the 1980s brown mink, I went to see Series 3.

The opening was a triumph of stars, models and fashion designers … I read  it on Vogue. I saw the pictures and made the save image of some clothes that I cannot never afford

So I booked. I decided to go with Mattias on Sunday. September in London is spectacular. Sun, 25 degrees, go around in t-shirt at the end of September, it’s like winning a lottery for albinos, born on February 28.

Series 3 explains the creative process of the idea and inspiration that is behind the latest  collection autumn / winter 2015-16 designed by Nicolas Ghesquiere.

180 Strand is a fantastic space close to Somerset House. If you’ve never been there , the next time you come to London avoided Oxford Circus and go there.

                 

Futuristic! The first room is dominated by a huge sphere, the genesis of the idea. A tribute to the architect Richard Buckminster, you can find the same version in the Vuitton Foundation in Paris. From the  Master mind  room through a corridor that reminds so much of a spaceship, you get to a room that is all a giant screen, where the idea takes shape by layering of  images and shapes.

Next room refers to the next phase, the real crafted  creation of the object. It is  all projected on a screen on the real work table on which you can experience the worker perspective.

Until you get to the fashion show itself. I have never experience it before. I do not deny that I had a certain effect, sit on the steps and watch the giant video vertical, project the image of real models on a catwalk. He made me feel Anne Wintour for 1 minute.

Series 3 Exhibition is worth, do not stop at  the appearances, although if you’re still hardcore fans of Kathleen Hanna and punk was your only real passion for decades, do not tell anyone and go anyway.

*Paris room, bar, games room of Foggia, best known as the place where and ‘can meet the most’ disparate characters engaged in conversations ranging from internal politics, foreign, regional, through the shooting in District Candelaro (version Foggia Hackney Central before gentrification).

** Mariastella Gelmini, Minister of Education, one of the worst of the Italian Republic. She belong to the ex Berlusconi party. Well know as really uneducated politician. She gets this position because part of the Berlusconi’s mistresses crew.

** *John Lindo Ferretti, frontman of an italian punk band called CCCP, CSI and then PGR. I really suggest to listen to them. The best album in my opinion is “Faithful to the line.”It does not really matter if you do not understand the lyrics. I grew up singing Nirvana and Sonic Youth without understand a word, like 80% of my friends. I was sometimes portatili scream “Pennyroyal Teaaaa” at some school concert.

**** Is an Italian politician. Minister of Youth Giorgia Meloni was in the IV Berlusconi government and president of the Young Italy. She is part of the extreme right Italian party.

Rossella Forle’ as mermaid in the city