We had the opportunity to design the architecture of the exhibition of bachelor’s and master’s theses for the Department of Product Design UMPRUM within Brussels Design September 2019.
5. – 30.9. 2019 Prague House Brussels
We are grateful for our cooperation with the Prague House in Brussels, our classmates, the leading Honza Němeček and Michal Froněk and all of the others who was with us in this project.
graphic design Do Hoai Nam
photography Agnes Willow a Jakub Delibalta
illustrations Jakub Plachý
exhibitors
Štěpán Smetana, Terezie Lexová, Natálie Navrátilová, Ludmila Esterková, Tomáš Rachunek, Adam Štok, Matěj Coufal, Studiolo Robotico R.U.R
photography Filip de Smet
The Artsemestr exhibition presents several of the bachelor and master theses created in the past school year. There are works by different authors and their different projects, but they do have something in common, which is respect for handicraft and craft in contrast to contemporary tendencies. The common theme for the bachelor theses on the product design studio is leather and its application in the interior, a material to which one of the oldest manufacturing industries is attached, which always had its place and usage; even today, when its use and production are often the center of controversies and conjecture. Five projects were created, comprising interior accessories, with a completely individual design approach and perception of the use of this natural material. These projects elaborates this topic in ethical, aesthetic and functional terms.
Each of these aspects is taken into account. They are joined by the respect of material and the precise craftsmanship that was possible in cooperation with Ondřej Šíma and his bag workshop. The exhibition also presents two diploma theses: a collection of pressed metal furniture steel profiles and partly theoretical work focused on the meter as a tool and its overlap into theoretical disciplines in conjunction with the role of a designer. A project is also exhibited in the ceremonial hall, which was presented at this year’s Milano Design Week, called Studiolo Robotico R.U.R., which in an updated context demonstrates the search for boundaries between traditional, hand-crafted and full-fledged approaches and fully automated, digital technologies.
