HOLON.- Design Museum Holon is presenting The Conversation Show, an original exhibition featuring five commissioned installations that explore the mutual interchange and creative process between leading designers working together as a duo or group. Each internationally renowned design studio created site-specific objects, spaces or interactive works that physically and conceptually express their creative dialogue and collaborative practice.
“Design and communication are indefinitely tied together,” says Maya Dvash, Chief Curator of Design Museum Holon. “‘The Conversation Show’ showcases the layers of this notion – the conversation between creators themselves, as well as the dialogue between the designers and visitors.”
“‘The Conversation Show’ represents a peculiar approach to design, focusing on the centrality of people and the way they interact with each other. It aims to analyze and portray the shared and peculiar methodologies of working together on a new task, confirming design as a drive of communication exchange,” says Maria Cristina Didero, Curator of The Conversation Show. “But here we gave designers also another task: to envision a way to show and pass to the audience their personal way of interaction while creating. ‘The Conversation Show’ invites people to examine and experience these processes and behaviors through these representative projects - being it an environment or an object collection.”
Showcased in The Dr. Shulamit Katzman Gallery, the Lower Gallery of Design Museum Holon, is The Hall of Broken Mirrors, an immersive installation by the New York-based collaborative practice, Snarkitecture together with Italian interiors brand, Gufram. They created a series of mirrors and passageways, splitting the gallery into three spaces; white, grey and black. Visitors are encouraged to walk through “mirrors” to create the illusion of reflection within paralleled worlds and scenarios.
The Upper Gallery of the Museum is divided into four spaces - designed by Rona Zinger - which allows visitors to explore different installations through a cross shaped corridor.
Entering the Upper Gallery, the Jaffa-based design studio Reddish presents their installation Balancing Act. The Israeli duo, Naama Steinbock and Idan Friedman, created a series of seven works parte of the same project, each of which is a visual representation of the balance and emotion in their partnership. Also portrayed in their work, are various hanging and perched winged objects in which the studio drew inspiration from natural history museums.
mischer'traxler’s interactive installation, Coalesque, is a visualisation of the couple’s dialogue. Vienna-based designers Katharina Mischer and Thomas Traxler created a pendulum with a light sphere that interacts with visitors. When visitors approach the circle, the pendulum leans towards them and the sphere lights up, simulating the process of creative dialogue within two people or a group. Emphasizing on this concept, mischer'traxler’s installation features the couple’s sketches, drawings and written conversations.
Also in the Upper Gallery, BCXSY – Boaz Cohen and Sayaka Yamamoto - presents Reciprocal Syntax, an interactive installation dealing with the importance of balance and common ground as the starting point of every creative process. Seeking to explore this concept, the Amsterdam-based cooperative created a semi-translucent room within their exhibition space. Inside the room there is an interactive seesaw that when activated by two participants, kaleidoscope-like projections and sounds wash the room with colours, shapes and images.
The fourth installation in the Upper Gallery is Dune by the Venice-based studio, Zaven. Due to the studio’s geographical proximity to the city of Murano, which is known for glass artistry, and the couple’s concern of the disappearance of traditional craft making, Enrica Cavarzan and Marco Zavagno combined tradition and innovation into their work. Inventing a new way of working in glass layering, Zaven’s installation features this technique through a collection of lighting fixtures, made from layers of cast-glass slabs. The exhibition will feature Zaven's work process together with the finished product.
Alongside each installation, instead of producing a catalogue the museum presents unique five-minute videos made by curator Maria Cristina Didero and Muse Factory of Projects’ Francesca Molteni. The five films look into the design studios of each duo or group, highlighting the dialogue, connection and work process between the designers leading up to the exhibition.
The Designers
BCXSY (Boaz Cohen and Sayaka Yamamoto)
BCXSY is an interdisciplinary cooperative based in Amsterdam that was founded in 2007. Their studio places emphasis on personal experience, human interaction and emotional awareness, and is committed to socially responsive projects. The studio has also teamed up with world-acclaimed partners such as H. Stern, Kvadrat, J. & L. Lobmeyr, Philips Lighting, Spazio Rossana Orlandi, Wallpaper*, Domaine de Boisbuchet, Calico Wallpaper and many others. Their award-winning work is featuring in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; the Shanghai Glass Museum; and the Textile Museum in Tilburg, Netherlands.
mischer’traxler (Katharina Mischer and Thomas Traxler)
mischer’traxler is a design practice based in Vienna, Austria that develops and designs objects, furniture, processes, and installations, focusing on experiments and conceptual thinking. The studio’s projects are displayed in contemporary design and art museums including Boijmans van Boiningen, Design Museum London, the Triennale Milano, Cafa Art Museum Beijing, Mudac Lausanne and more, as well as in international festivals and fairs. Their work can also be found in the permanent colelctions of the Art Institute Chicago, The Vitra Design Museum and the MAK Vienna, among others.
Reddish (Naama Steinbock and Idan Friedman)
Reddish is a design studio based in Jaffa, Israel that was founded in 2002, providing design services to international clientele. Their design works range from conceptual and curatorial projects to mass-produced objects. The studio’s works have won several local and international awards and are featured in both public and private collections in Israel and elsewhere. Steinbock and Friedman give workshops and lectures in various design schools, institutions and conferences both in Israel and abroad.
Snarkitecture (Daniel Arsham, Alex Mustonen and Benjamin Porto)
Snarkitecture is a New York-based collaborative design practice. Snarkitecture creates large-scale projects, installations and objects that investigate the boundaries between disciplines. Their work focuses on the reinterpretation of everyday materials, structures and programs to new and imaginative effect, focusing on the importance of experience and the creation of unexpected moments that invite people to engage with their surroundings. Snarkitecture exhibited in Milan Design Week 2018, had their first comprehensive museum exhibition at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C, and has also created a large-scale installation for the New Museum Gala, New York in 2013.
Zaven (Enrica Cavarzan and Marco Zavagno)
Zaven is a multidisciplinary creative studio based in Venice, Italy that studies the interaction between communications, design and art, while specializing in creative direction and in product, graphic and installation design. The studio focuses on research, concept development, and collaboration among professionals from different fields. Cavarzan and Zavagn regularly teach and give workshops and lectures in various design schools, both in Italy and abroad.
