CURATING GAPS, 2021

CURATING GAPS Staying with the Trouble

What about Activism?

RATIONE SOLI

The Empacipated Specator

As Always, Just a Matter of Perspective Fluid Furniture MAP I: Model Soil

Ornamentum

A Threat to Holocene Resurgence Is a Threat to Livability

SYNERGY

OIL AND GAS POLLUTION IN VACA MUERTA

La Salle de Bain/ La Convalescence

Altered Landscape

Fictive Erosion

THE BENZ

Open Veins of Latin America

Automobile in Corsa (Composition, Dynamisme D‘une Automobile)

Rain, Steam and Head– The Great Western Railway

Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle

Bio Iridescent Sequin A non-Eudlidean view of California as a cold place to be

Grahm Cain's Dirty Physiologies Other Biological Futures

NUTAN METAMORPHOSIS Episode 02: Liquidation

Inside Out Algae as Building Blocks

Fung Print Introduction: A Greater Mirical Perception

Bachelor Thesis 2020/21

by Nina Blume

Communciation Design University of Applied Sciences Potsdam

Curating

Gaps

Bachelor Thesis Communciation Design University of Applied Sciences Potsdam Department of Design Spring 2021

Written by Nina Blume Matriculation #14698

Supervised by Prof. Myriel Milicevic Prof. Alexandra Martini

INDEX

PROLOGUE INTRODUCTION: CURATING GAPS METHODOLOGY

04 06 10

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

12 14 16 18

Gaps in Definition Open Gaps to Public Discourse Gaps to Disrupt

PRACTICAL EXAMPLE Interruptions of Continuity Background (Non)Depleted Gaps as Driving Force Towards Dematerialisation Geo-Shaping Desiging with Living Organisms Innovation & Technology Independence of Industrial Process Cultural Narratives Emergence Between Gaps Gaps=Never a Comprehensive Endpoint Parasitic Reading Room

CONCLUSION

20 22 26 28 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46 48 50

PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS As Always, Just a Matter of Perspective: Paulo Arraiano RATIONE SOLI: Davide Piscitelli Altered Landscape: Vincent Snijders Fictive Erosion: Kajsa Melchior SYNERGY: Rollo Bryant Fungi Print: Blast Studio Algae as Building Blocks: Claudia Bumb Nutan Tableware: crafting plastics! studio Inside Out: Studio KBB Bio Iridescent Sequin: Elissa Brunato Fluid Furniture: Barry Llewellyn and Sarah Roseman Ornamentum: Orson Oxo Van Beek and Quinten Mestdagh THE BENZ: Louise Bègue-Teissier and Romain Albers La Salle de Bain/La Convalescence: Anna Solal

CONTRIBUTORS’ BIOGRAPHIES BIBLIOGRAPHY PHOTO CREDITS IMPRINT

52 54 56 58 60 62 64 66 68 70 72 74 76 78 80 82 86 88 90

PROLOGUE

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Even after many museums, galleries, and other cultural institutions had to close their doors and adapt their programme to the new circumstances; the confrontation with our epoch’s long-term social, political and ecological challenges continues.

Since impact and change are deeply mediated by culture and curatorial practice has shifted function from the purely aesthetic to the epistemic, which signifies an emerging field for, and possibly of, research, it might offer a site to mediate pressing ecological questions.

This thesis reviews the intersection between contemporary curating, design, art, and environmental activism by linking them to my own experience of curating a group show together with my curatorial team during the Dutch Design Week 2020.

Under the title Curating Gaps, the thesis refers to actively open gaps in rigid systems and provoke discourse while acknowledging the impossibility of reaching a comprehensive endpoint in the ecological discussion and appreciating gaps as elements in an ongoing process.

INTRODUCTION: CURATING GAPS

In a time of ecological collapse and social division, the concept of gaps sounds like something that will drive us further apart. But in these challenging times, it is crucial to promote the value of sharing ideas in the design, art, and curatorial field and to help imagine a shared future by demonstrating that progress is achieved by pooling knowledge.1 For generations, creative minds have been tackling challenges like climate breakdown and resource depletion in projects with a political, social, and environmental focus. They actively address contemporary challenges using research methods and formulate the knowledge gained in different forms of visual information, various applications and methods.

However, in a much needed moment of collective thinking and reflection, creating connections between these various specialisations, practices and research findings are becoming increasingly important. This thesis considers curatorial practices as an assemblage of diverse knowledge, drawing on different perspectives and approaches to address socio-ecological issues in a multilayered approach. This also goes beyond contemporary design and art as a dynamic that deepens and alters existing strategies for listening to, valuing, and synthesizing different types of knowledge and expertise around current ecological issues and related social and political concerns.2 By acting as both a platform for collective knowledge and a mode of visual exploration, the curatorial practice has the potential to connect these various fields of visual research and different practices centred on socio-ecological commitment. Moreover, as one of the points of connection to the public audience, the curatoraial practice could offer a cultural-political impact and space for critical thinking around these developments.

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The programmes are as diverse as the problem areas they address. Nonetheless, addressing social, ecological, and political issues is becoming a crucial aspect of the criticality that curatorial practice is largely engaged with.3 The pairing of curatorial and socio-ecological concerns is not new, therefore, and has been around for a couple of decades. However, new questions continue to emerge as gaps in the discourse are discovered and new perspectives broaden, take different directions, and continuously amplify the confrontation with the thematic.

My practical experience was one contribution to opening up a discourse where we thought something within the already broadly discussed bond of curating and socio-ecological themes was worth exploring with my curatorial team during the virtual Dutch Design Week 2020 (DDW).

Additional research led me to wonder if this could be applied in a broader sense: Is the discovery of gaps the driving force behind curatorial practice?

[01] See Hans Ulrich Orbist, “My Not-Manifesto for Art, Society, and Mondialité”, in Steven Henry Madoff (ed.), What About Activism? (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2019), 116.

[02] See Nicola Triscott, “Art and Intervention in the Stewardship of the Planetary Commons: Towards a Curatorial Model of Co-inquiry”, PhD thesis, University of Westminster Centre for Research and Education in Arts and Media, 2017, <https://nicolatriscott.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/ntriscott_phdcommentary_final.pdf> [03] Whereby it remains to be seen to what extent institutions and art organizations can adopt a particular critical stance without changing their internal structure: see SAVVY Contemporary—The Laboratory of Form-Ideas, accessed 23 February 2021, <https://www.savvy-contemporary.com>. See also La Casa Encendida, La institución como lugar de aprendizaje, con Antonia Alampi y Carolina Rito, YouTube video, 26 June 2020, 1:02:41, <https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=-oBezbT6qJA&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=LaCasaEncendida>

8 In order to explore my thesis question, I have first synthesized the dictionary definition of gaps into four concepts, which I will introduce before relating them to curatorial practice.

From the Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries, I have identified four concepts for understanding gaps: 1. A space or interval; a break in continuity; a period of time in which something else is done 2. A difference, especially an undesirable one, between two views or situations 3. An empty space or opening in the middle of an object or between two objects 4. Something that is missing from a situation Gaps are both a physical distance or missing part and, in a more metaphorical sense, a difference or change in view or situation. Gaps are perceived as incomplete or porous, outside the notion of that which is permanent and stable. An exploration of uncertain terrains and an engagement with the unknown. In summary, the concept of gaps is a means of questioning a finished and comprehensive end point.

In the following thesis, I want to link these concepts of gaps to the discourse around current socio-ecological and the dynamics of curating that oppose any notion of a singular, unified, homogeneous response in favour of plurality and proceed to the multilayered challenges posed by enviromental breakdown and resource extraction.

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The first part covers the necessary background information on my framing of curating, the role of gaps in these developments, and how to apply both to the communication of socio-ecological challenges. It looks at the emancipation of curatorial practice through the perspective of open gaps in the definition of curating as a driving force behind (re)definition. This reveals the linkage between contemporary curating and modes of collective and aesthetic knowledge production and explores the active opening of gaps in rigid systems by posing questions within the ecological discussion.

The second part will apply these findings to the (Non)Depleted exhibition, which I curated together with my curatorial team for the virtual Dutch Design Week 2020, and identify further gaps that act as a driving force. Starting with the interruption to curatorial practice caused by the circumstances of the pandemic, this section will look at the continuity of addressing socio-ecological concerns through curatorial programmes and the gap in placing our exhibition concept. It will also examine the narratives and open gaps that emerge through the projects by means of an additional programme created by our guest curator to further explore the topic of the exhibition.

METHODOLOGY

To answer my question, I draw on my own experience and the knowledge I gained through the projects from the (Non)Depleted exhibition. The group exhibition included twenty-two voices and fifteen projects, which were shown in a virtual showroom over a period of three months. Here I use both our internal curatorial concept for the exhibition and the ideas for the individual projects through which the theme was explored. In addition to this, the Parasitic Reading Room will be one of my sources of content.

The knowledge gained in the process combines two forms of insights: reflective and analytical thinking about the curatorial process (curating as research and communication, the development of an exhibition, the narratives of the projects) and the developed critical discourse relating to the proposed theme (resource depletion, climate breakdown, the relationship to materials and processes). Since these two aspects—practice and thematic focus—are interconnected, they cannot be explained separately and will be treated in relation to each other.

Based on my practical experience and the exploratory example of (Non)Depleted, I will zoom out to link this example to a broader discourse by analysing the motive power of gaps within curatorial practice before zooming back in and investigating how gaps played a role in the practical example and how we dealt with them.

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Besides my own experiences of developing the exhibition, I interviewed Fotini Takirdiki from State Studio Berlin. This was an opportunity to further explore the questions posed in the thesis and add another perspective based on the findings from her research and master’s thesis, which deals with new forms of knowledge production, collective experimentation and curating in the Anthropocene. The interview is embedded in a separate booklet, which can be read in parallel to draw link between the theroretical framework and the exploratory example of (Non)Depleted.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The following introductory section presents a short overview of various discourses relating to curatorial practice, which actively influenced the theoretical analysis of the practical experience to reveal the motive power of gaps.

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Gaps in Definiton

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Open gaps in a rigorous definition of curating bring together several curators, critics, and educators to (re)define the term and thus the practice as an ongoing process. The discovery of gaps drives practitioners to find their own approaches and focal points for their practice. The resulting varity is what makes up contemporary curatorial practice, which anticipates that different lines of development are possible.4 One thing is clear, however, for most contemporary practitioners: that the understanding of curating in design and art in the classical sense of filling a space with objects misses the potential of the practice.5 In recent decades, the notion of curating has expanded considerably, opening the field “beyond showing or presenting to include enabling, making public, educating, analysing, criticising, theorising, editing and staging.”6 Since curating emancipated itself as a practice in its own right in the 1990s with the so-called curatorial turn,7 the discourse on the definition of curating has been reconfigured and continuously expanded—to such a degree that it fills a multitude of books and become a field of critical analysis. Since then, numerous educators, theorists, and practitioners have begun to gather around the emerging concepts of “practice-based research” and “the curatorial”.8 This linkage to research and modes of knowledge production based on visual exploration, on the one hand, and to the expanded concept of “the curatorial”on the other leads towards less object-oriented and discursive educational projects that involve many voices and perspectives.9 This is an important development to underline here in terms of my argument and the exploration of curating as a format for communicating research relating to socio-ecological challenges.

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Either way, these open gaps in the rigorous definition leave room for different voices and practice to enter into curatorial work. In our case, we have built a curatorial collective with no prior curatorial experience. This form of self-organization could be seen as a mode of collaboration that springs from a productive and empowering strategy that combines inter-subjective experience with a kind of activism.10 We were driven by the idea of providing a platform to explore and push forward radical approaches, practical applications, relevant aesthetics, and critical thinking to envision alternative paths out of our socioecological collapse with a focus on resource infrastructures.

[04] See Paul O’Neill and Mick Wilson (eds.), Curating Research (London: Open Edition / De Apell, 2015), 17.

[05] See Ute Meta Baue, "Humble Means”, in Madoff, What About Activism?, 206.

[06] Beatrice Von Bismarck, Jörn Schlafaff, and Thomas Weski (eds.), Cultures of the Curatorial (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2012).

[07] This process started in the 1960s, when the separation between artwork, exhibition space, and audience blurred and the exhibition itself became the object of discourse. During this time, an active search for new exhibition formats expanded the notion of curating and the role of the curator: the interdependence of artworks and framing became curatorial concepts.

[08] Tom Holert, Knowledge Beside Itself (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2020), 13.

[09] tranzit.hu, “Curatorial Dictionary: Unpacking the Oxymoron”, in O’Neill and Wilson, Curating Research, 236.

[10] Ibid.

Open Discourse Gaps to the Public

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Since its emancipation to become an independent form of critical analysis, curatorial practice has shifted function from the purely aesthetic to the epistemic, which signifies an emerging field for, and possibly of, research.12 As this thesis sets out to show, it could operate as a format of ecological research communication, articulating the connection between contemporary curating and the different kinds of knowledge production and research that have recently emerged in the field of curatorial practice.13 A more contemporary definition of curating might be activities that involve discovering, exploring, and ultimately presenting a question or idea to an audience, opening up to the public a discovered gap in the discourse e.g. relating to climate breakdown and resource depletion. This prioritization of the exhibition space and curatorial projects as a place to interrogate and explore open points in the discourse offers a potential format for responding in new and necessary ways to the ongoing and inevitable crises we face.14 Whilst we can all recognize what is termed scientific knowledge, especially as it relates to ecological collapse, very few of us can usefully apply it in our daily lives. Here research-based design and artistic research as a “knowledge utilising practice” and transforming the gained insights might fill this gap between scientific findings and their relationship to our day-to-day experience.15 Therefore, broadening our understanding and changing our thinking requires us to reflect more deeply on these visual research practices and treat them with the same rigour that is applied to science. As Paola Antonelli argues, environmentally friendly design has been seen as inferior for far too long.16

17

“The temporary suspension of knowledge that is necessary to prioritise a question, rather than a singular specific answer, resonates within recent curatorial practices.”

—Georgina Jackson

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This aspect of aesthetic knowledge is explored, for example, in Knowledge Beside Itself by Tom Holert, who claims different, novel access to “knowledge” through the artistic, which does not replace scientific knowledge but rather provides another kind of relationship to knowledge.17 This goes beyond the theoretical into forms for translating knowledge into visual, performative, and/or sensory explorations, demonstrating that the “what” (knowledge that has been gathered on the research topic) cannot be separated from the “how” (the shaping and translation of knowledge).18

[11] Georgina Jackson, “And the Question Is …”, in O’Neill and Wilson, Curating Research, 61.

[12] See Simon Sheikh, “Towards the Exhibition as Research”, in O’Neill and Wilson, Curating Research, 33.

[13] See O’Neill and Wilson, Curating Research.

[14] Tom Holert, Knowledge Beside Itself (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2020), 16.

[15] See Alastair Fuad-LUnited Kingdome, „Designing New Social Imaginaries“, in Daniëlle Arets (ed.), Radical Ecologies: Designing for the Risk Society (Eindhoven: The Readership in Strategic Creativity, 2017), 57.

[16] See Paola Antonelli, “The New Frontiers of Design”, O’Reilly Solid Conference 2014, YouTube video, 23 May 2014, 14:10, <https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=u6mDAEOfGWQ&ab_channel=O%27Reilly> [17] See Holert, Knowledge Beside Itself, 16.

[18] O’Neill and Wilson, Curating Research.

“It‘s about doubt, it‘s about pushing ideas, it‘s not about solving problems, it‘s about making problems and sometimes framing problems.”

—Paola Antonelli

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[19] Antonelli, “The New Frontiers of Design”, 1:02–1:11.

[20] Ct. Daniëlle Arets, “Design for Debate: Exploring the Role of Design in Policy Making”, in Radical Ecologies: Deisgning for the Risk Society (Eindhoven: The Readership in Strategic Creativity, 2017), 32.

[21] Maria Lind, “The Curatorial”, in Brian Kuan Wood (ed.), Selected Maria Lind Writing (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2010), 64.

[22] Simon Sheikh and Jill Winder (eds.), Vectors of the Possible, exh. cat.

(Utrecht: BAK – basis voor actuele kunst, 2010), 5.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Jack Persekian with Alison Carmel Ramer, “The Tipping Point: The Leverage of Cultural Institutions”, in Madoff, What About Activism?, 204.

[25] tranzit.hu, “Curatorial Dictionary”, 242.

Gaps to Disrupt

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Often driven by and basing their work on research, contemporary practitioners are deeply and unavoidably entangled in the dynamics of social and political life. By addressing or even provoking the changing status and function of things, it might be the role of the “power brokers” to disrupt current rigid systems by actively opening gaps to envision an alternative present and future.20 The political efficacy of the ecologically and politically committed practitioners may thus come from “creating friction and pushing new ideas”,21 thus functioning primarily as a “motivational and emancipatory tool to overcome the limitations of the present”.22 It is also a way to provoke imaginaries and engage with the (im)possible, by speculating on and visualizing questions, ideas, and alternatives around our socio-ecological challenges. The visual practice here is above all to present the confrontation with another possibility and to bring it into the public conversation.23 The role of the curatorial here could function as a platform for these diverse voices and a connecting point with the public to encourage work that might “influence public opinion and ensure a safe space to critically analyze society’s urgent problems and challenge rigid attitudes.”24 However, it should be mentioned that discursive (curatorial) practices often “seem to exclude rather than include the audience”, as the discourses stimulated are often kept at an expert level, in many cases inaccessible, or even actively exclude certain groups from the discourse due to the setting and power structures in which it takes place, having an alienating and exclusive effect.25 Which points out and contribute to certain social gap in which these discourse take place, whereby there are a lot of examples directly addressing this issue and invent new formats.

EXPLORATORY EXAMPLE

The following part looks at the example of (Non)Depleted as an example and the continuity of addressing socio-ecological concerns through curatorial programmes within the interruption of continutity. It will discuss the narratives and open gaps that emerge through the projects through an additional programme created by our guest curator to explore the exhibition's topic further.

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Interruptions of Continuity

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It seems like a demand or almost an expectation lies in the cultural sector to timely response to historical events, political changes, social crisis, and environmental catastrophes.

—Cf. Tom Holert26 This quote refers to both the response to contemporary struggles within curatorial practice and the responsibility to address them. This holds true even in—or especially in—challenging times. This chapter contextualizes (Non)Depleted within the current circumstances and against the background of our motivation for realising the exhibition. This brings us to the concept of gaps as a “space or interval; a break in continuity; a period of time spent doing something different.”

Within the special context of the pandemic in 2020, we were given the opportunity to develop an exhibition for Dutch Design Week.27 Of course, realizing an exhibition during a period of radical change and challenge on the environmental, political, and social levels begs the question of why we keep putting on exhibitions.

The interruption, on many levels, of the continuity in the way we do things led us to reconsider and adapt our practices and formats. On the other side, there was a more intense ongoing engagement with these questions and concerns. Rather than disconnecting from the evolving socio-ecological challenges of climate breakdown and resource depletion—at a time when these threats tend to be overshadowed by the most recent challenges in the current global health crisis with wide-ranging social, political, economic, and cultural effects—we wanted to contribute to giving public visibility to the topic at a crucial

23

time for collective imaginaries. Even after many museums, galleries, and other cultural institutions had been compelled to close their doors and adapt their programme to the new circumstances, it was clear that this was “not a time when we can use various excuses to postpone our confrontation with the challenges of our epoch.”28 In the most powerful sense, this involves making the shift away from a narrative of emergencies—which is reactive to the symptoms of an endless chain of crises—to the complex structures from which they emerge and/or the struggles which they inhabit.29 This holds also true to a structural change within the curatorial and institustional practice.

[26] Cf. Holert, Knowledge Beside Itself, 161.

[27] Dutch Design Week began back in 1998. In that year the Vormgeversoverleg (a designers’ collaborative) organized the first Day of Design. Its objective was to introduce entrepreneurs to designers. The event, which took place annually in Eindhoven, attracted more interest each year and grew exponentially. The Day of Design became the Week of Design in 2002 and ultimately in 2005 it was renamed Dutch Design Week (DDW).

[28] Mira Gakjina, “Who Cares? Art Institutions and the Environmental Crisis”, in Magdalena Ziółkowska (ed.), Plasticity of the Planet: On Environmental Challenge for Art and Its Institutions (Milan: Mousse Publishing, 2020), 317.

[29] Ibid., 318

(Non)Depleted Virtual Showroom View at Dutch Design Week 2020. <https://ddw.nl/en/programme/3732/nondepleted>

25

As a curatorial team we came together with the idea of using this gap productively and offering a platform to visually explore questions and approaches that offer an alternative way in relation to our resource politics and the implications of materials. For this, Dutch Design Week (DDW) provided us with a great opportunity to achieve this and a suitable environment in which to work. As in previous years, DDW offers “an array of sustainable, innovative, surprising but also quirky and at times downright nonsensical projects with which designers experiment with materials.”30 It is no longer possible to imagine contemporary design without material experiments.

This year we are one of 317 exhibitions with the tags “Material”, “Bio”, “Science”, “Art” and “Industrial”.31 In the middle of these countless research projects, artistic productions, exhibitions, design projects, and public talks, we found, within the widely discussed discourse around materials, a gap to acteivly question the framing of providing solutions, which we wanted to explore through our exhibition.

[30] Dutch Design Week, “DDW Trend: Rebalancing of materials research”, 21 October 2020, <https://ddw.nl/en/magazine-archive/580/ddw-trend-rebalancing-of-materials-research> [31] Dutch Design Week, “Programme ’20”, accessed 18 February 2021, <https:// ddw.nl/en/programme>

Background (Non)Depleted

26

(Non)Depleted is an ongoing curatorial project, which investigates the broader context of our social, political and ecological relationship to materials– focusing on research, aesthetics and self-reflection. First initiated as an archive about sustainable materials and applications, we tried to look at the field from different angles. To acknowledge the complexity of the material turn, we draw the focus not solely on the framing of sustainable materials to open further discussion about material narratives and production methods.

The exhibition's title refers to resource depletion caused by extractive capitalism and its various social, political and emotional effects, which is described as follows–whereby got interpreted and widen during the process.

“Resource depletion is the consumption of a resource faster than it can be replenished. Natural resources are commonly divided between renewable resources and non-renewable resources. […] Use of either of these forms of resources beyond their rate of replacement is considered to be resource depletion.”32 While there are multiple types of depletion, it could be summed up as the overconsumption or pollution of resources caused by different industries.

The widespread effects of the excessive use of resources are not solely changing our landscape, climate, and biodiversity, moreover threatening the most vulnerable populations’ safety and livelihoods, creating a gap between the industrial benefits of fast-growing and the affected low and middle-income countries.33 These dynamics of fast-growing capitalism upon limited resources and social injustice cannot sustain ever-increasing levels of consumption based on current exploiding models. This call for radical rethinking mobilised an ever-expanding field of creative minds tackling these challenges in projects with a political, social, and environmental focus to rethink our material streams.

27 The “non” in the title is a reference to the creative minds and practitioners who address these issues and envision possible directions along an alternative path. Their proposals expand how we can rethink our methods, infrastructures, and relationship to materials. For these voices we wanted to provide a platform for exploring radical approaches, practical applications, relevant aesthetics, and critical thinking together.

So the title addresses current challenges while also pointing to the motive power to imagine a different means of material sourcing. The “non“ is intentionally placed in brackets to represent a certain caution in framing the process of material development, rather than just replacing certain materials with new, more sustainable ones, which might simply keep the system going instead of leading to the radical change we need.34 While the title is not directly formulated as a question, it still can be read as one. This prioritizing of a question rather than the provision of a single specific answer leaves gaps open for thinking and engaging critically with the subject. Still, we as we formulated the question produced the playing field and framing of the proposed theme.

[32] Wikipedia contributors, “Resource Depletion”, Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, 12 December 2020, <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Resource_depletion&oldid=993704844> [33] Richard Anderson, “Resource Depletion: Opportunity or Looming Catastrophe?”, BBC News, 11 June 2012, <https://www.bbc.com/news/business-16391040> [34] This refers to the phenomenon called greenwashing, which is the commercialization of green products as a marketing strategy practised by companies.

“Several dictionaries define the phenomenon of greenwashing, Webster’s New Millennium Dictionary of English defines greenwash as [the] ’practice of promoting environmentally friendly programs to deflect attention from an organization’s environmentally unfriendly or less savoury activities’. In 1999 the term was added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, that defines it as: ‘Disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image; a public image of environmental responsibility promulgated by or for an organization, etc., but perceived as being unfounded or intentionally misleading’.“ Sebastião Vieira de Freitas Netto, Marcos Felipe Falcão Sobral, Ana Regina Bezerra Ribeiro, and Gleibson Robert da Luz Soares, “Concepts and Forms of Greenwashing: A Systematic Review”, Environmental Sciences Europe 32 (2020), <https:// enveurope.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s12302-020-0300-3>

Gaps as Driving Force

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This chapter explores whether gaps can be a driving force to collectively gather and unpack questions. To do this, it looks at the example of (Non) Depleted, examining both on the dimensions within the curatorial team and through the exhibited projects and voices within the exhibition. This leads back to the theory of how the dynamics of curating can be used as a practice that connects different research around the common theme of resource depletion and possible ways of overcoming that.

In our situation of collective curating—which follows a growing tendency in the curatorial practice of recent decades—collaboration and co-inquiry also played an essential part in our mutual practice as curators, whereby we shared responsibility for the projects and drew value from the different perspectives we each brought in.36 This mode of working together resists the single narrative because the curatorial vision is already the product of multiple voices, rather than an individual (authorial) voice.37 As a curatorial team, we brought our expertise, interests, and perspectives to the project, from which the exhibition concept emerged from different angles. Sebastian Guzman Olmos brought with him his expertise in the field of material research and critical thinking on geopolitical issues.

Oliverio Segura embedded the art historical context by taking a critical position on how the projects frame themselves, making reference to distance and spectatorship. I contributed my experimentation with (design) formats to collectively unpack ecological questions like biodiversity loss or nitrogen abundance in urban space.

“A co-inquiry group involves people coming together to define and explore an issue, problem, or question that is important for them. Co-inquiry groups use and value the knowledge within the group.”

—Community-University

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35

Within the team, we value self-reflective practice and discover gaps as an invitation to expand and reach out to others. Here again, the aspect of sharing tasks and allowing open space in which to collaborate was also an attempt on our part to develop a platform that includes many other voices to co-produce interdisciplinary knowledge across areas of material research, infrastructural powers, and socio-ecological urgency.

In our case, unpacking the meaning of resource depletion and its various effects through our constellation of fourteen projects involved twenty-two individuals (including the curatorial team) with a range of interests, skill sets, world views, and practices. Their unconventional approach to material and techniques enables new methods to be brought in, with an eye to sustainability and innovation— translated into objects, furniture, new media installations, production methods, and scientific innovation.

[35] Sarah Banks and Andrea Armstrong, “Using Co-Inquiry to Study Co-Inquiry: Community-University Perspectives on Research”, Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, 7/1 (2014), <http://jces.ua.edu/ using-co-inquiry-to-study-co-inquiry-community-university-perspectiveson-research/> [36] tranzit.hu, “Curatorial Dictionary”, 236.

[37] Ibid.

30 The group exhibition brought together design and contemporary art perspectives, looking from different angles through their individual research on the proposed focus of (Non)Depleted. This resulted in a wide range of projects—including active experiments with post-industrial waste, biomaterials, living organisms, and digital tools—that take in a variety of industries and production methods: in terms not only of material choices but also of techniques, relationships, and infrastructures. The individual projects engage with different industries—from fashion and food production to industrial mining and the building sector—in which a rethinking of material usage is necessary. The variety of projects allows us to address these different sectors in parallel. What all the projects and contributions have in common is that they shed light on why our current resource politics needs to be adjusted. But the visions of how we are to get there—and the direction to be taken—are diverse, something that we tried to acknowledge through our broad assemblage of projects and voices. We thus set out to find balance and shed light on the proposed focus of (Non)Depleted, looking at it in a non-reactionary way from different perspectives.38 In this sense, we wanted to show that the multilayered topic of resource extraction encompasses many sub-areas and issues that cannot be viewed from only one perspective. As a curatorial team, we intend to use the exhibition as a site to “co-produce interdisciplinary knowledge across areas of specialist research and geopolitical urgency.”39 The focus of the exhibits goes beyond the framing of sustainability and opens up further discussion that arises through material narratives and production processes, thereby opening up gaps in the discourse, where the end is not simply to develop (more sustainable) material alternatives. These questions are explored through the objects, which inhabit the research and findings, and the context from which they emerge. How is contemporary Western culture expressed through materials? What is our attachment to connecting to, or indeed disconnecting from, the natural world through artificial representation? How might a design process look if industrial production were banned?

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Internally, we clustered and mapped the exhibition into thematic sub-fields to provide an overview of the different aspects that the projects address. The tool of the map somehow became useful as a means not only of communicating but also of dismantling the different facets of projects and observing their interconnections. This clustering is not seen as closed divisions between the projects but rather as an overlapping viral landscape of individual projects and their relationship with each other. This took shape during the process, rather than following a predefined set of selection criterias.

Through the projects presented, a broad spectrum of directions opens up based on the evolving interests, practices, and discourses of those involved. These very different projects are revealed in a variety of approaches, ranging from the narrowly defined choice of materials to narratives about production methods and the cultural implications of materials.

[38] See Jack Persekian with Alison Carmel Ramer, “The Tipping Point: The Leverage of Cultural Institutions”, in Madoff, What About Activism?, 202.

[39] See Triscott, “Art and Intervention”.

Davide Piscitelli: RATIONE SOLI 2019. London, United Kingdom. → see p. 56

Paulo Arraiano: As Always, Just a Matter of Perspective, 2017. Lisbon, Portugal. → see p. 54

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Towards Dematerialisation

33

How do we connect with—or disconnect from—our natural world through artificial representation? Is there even a separation between the two? Addressing this blurry division between artificial and “natural”, we focused two projects with different perspectives on this question. Paulo Arraiano addresses his video installation As Always, Just a Matter of Perspective—which tackles the transformation of human perception through physical distance— to questions concerning climate changes, biospheres, and extinction. Everything seems to become translated into a unified digital language: satellite landscape images from NASA mixed with close-ups of human skin and meat cuts. This “shift from direct life experience to an artificial way” of experiencing is the central focus of the project.

Meanwhile, RATIONE SOLI by Davide Piscitelli questions the deep-rooted myth whereby nature is perceived as something detached from human influences and technologies, arguing that “there is no nature without the artificial and there is no artificial without nature.”

Davide Piscitelli: RATIONE SOLI, 2019. London, United Kingdom. → see p. 56 Rollo Brayat: SYNERGY, 2019. Eindhoven, The Netherlands. → see p. 62

Vincents Snijders: Altered Landscape, 2019. Rotterdam, Netherlands. → see p. 58 Kajsa Melchior: Fictive Erosion, 2019. Stockholm, Sweden. → see p. 60

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Geo-Shaping

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Vincent Snijders’s project Altered Landscape focused on the industrial extraction of valuable minerals and other geological materials from the Earth by translating this process into a technique for producing vases, involving a home-made machine that drills and digs into the plaster to form the vases just as industrial machines do with the Earth’s surface on a much larger scale. Snijders deploys the vases as a historical design object, as “a medium for storytelling throughout history: from mythologies to war-stories”—one that now tells the tale of nature being consumed by humans. A video with an industrial sound collage visualizes the process as an additional element of the project.

Another perspective on extractivism is afforded by the project by Kajsa Melchior and her furniture line Fictive Erosion: taking her inspiration from the geological process of erosion and transferring it into production methods, she investigates how the design process might look if there was an environmental ban on human machines. These two projects use the production process as their storytelling format to look at how industrial production influences geological processes and vice versa.

These double-edged influences and emerging aesthetics are part of Piscitelli’s project RATIONE SOLI, which generated digital rocks embedded with external human-made waste—a (digital) plastiglomerate—challenging our perception of beauty as purity. Likewise, Snijders finds beauty in the products of industrially exploited landscapes—“creating monuments in the act of destroying”—even while the effects of this act are precarious.

The interaction with the unpredictable properties of natural material reaction is also tackled by Rollo Bryant, who integrates the crystallization of salt in his design process to produce lamp shades in his project SYNERGY.

crafting plastics! studio: NUTAN, 2019. Bratislava, Slovakia. → see p. 68 Studio KBB: Inside Out, 2019. Copenhagen, Denmark. → see p. 70

Blast Studio: Fungi Print, 2020. London, United Kingdom. → see p. 64 Claudia Bumb: Algae as Building Blocks, 2020. Hannover, Germany. → see p. 66

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Desiging with Living Organisms

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An alternative approach to sourcing materials is to design with living organisms. To illustrate this, we presented two projects that each work with different microorganisms: algae and mycelium.

In their project Fungi Print Studio Blast investigates mycelium—and the support structure, correct humidity, and temperature they need to grow to their fullest—for their architectural sculptures made out of coffee-cup waste collected in urban space in their project Fungi Print. The project proposes a closed-loop system of cohabitation in the urban environment, which consolidates the human waste that is produced through digestion by non-human organisms, in this case, mycelium. Claudia Bumb’s project acknowledges the value of the microorganisms in the city and of promoting a more interwoven living structure. In her material research project Algae as Building Blocks, she uses algae as an alternative to concrete within the resource-hungry building industry. Besides this processed material, her installation includes water tanks with three different species of living algae.

A complementary way of designing with living organisms is to use organic waste as can be seen in he practice of Studio KBB. Even if many sustainable materials are enjoying broader acceptance and exert a feeling bordering on fascination, certain moral or psychological barriers relating to unusual materials sometimes need to be tested out. The project

by Studio KBB often evokes an initial feeling of disgust. The visual exploration of the project Inside Out examines the organic waste material of cow intestines and “the endless possibilities and qualities of a material that has strength, versatility, transparency and natural glue”. Their chandelier is one of a number of light sculptures.

Blast Studio: Fungi Print, 2020. London, United Kingdom. → see p. 64

Elissa Brunato: Bio Iridescent Sequin, 2019. London, United Kingdom. → see p. 72

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Innovation & Technology

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Combining low-tech craft techniques with high-tech machinery allows carfting plastic! studio to explore a material’s potential applications, its aesthetic and form, with a view to integrating circular materials into consumer goods systems. By merging circular design and materials science, their tableware series Nutan sets out to question the future of foodware for households and takeaways by introducing new innovative materials into our day-to-day lives.

Using 3D printing technology, Studio Blast provides another form of high tech processes to produce the mycelium sculptures of Fungi Print. Their project combines three levels: their pieces are designed by humans, made by robots and taken over by fungi.

Elissa Brunato’s research-and-development work on innovative materials takes place in the lab. Together with a scientific research team, she is developing an innovative sustainable alternative to petroleum-based plastic sequins made entirely of cellulose, thereby addressing another major polluting industry, the world of fashion and textiles.

Barry Llewellyn and Sarah Roseman: Fluid Furniture, 2020. Eindhoven, Netherlands. → see p. 74 Orson Oxo Van Beek and Quinten Mestdagh: Ornamentum, 2020. Antwerp, Belgium. → see p. 76

Vincents Snijders: Altered Landscape, 2019. Rotterdam, Netherlands. → see p. 58

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Independence of Industrial Process

41

Another approach to material production is to be independent of industrial processes and use low-tech, often self-designed machines—a rebirth of craftsmanship. Barry Llewellyn and Sarah Roseman transformed their domestic space into an intimate factory during lockdown to produce their home-made furniture series Fluid Furniture, consisting of a lamp and an armchair. “The restraints of working at home allowed for the creation of custom machines to carry out custom processes. From weaving, melting, rope making, and sculpting, we utilised all the ingredients found in curbside couches to form our creations.”

Similarly, Vincent Snijders creates his custom machine for his specialized production process creating vases for the project Altered Landscape, while the theme of craftsmanship is reflected in Orson Oxo Van Beek and Quinten Mestdagh’s positioning of themselves “as modern-day craftsmen [using] a time-consuming design process” in their project Ornamentum.

Anna Solal: The Sink (LA SALLE DE BAIN), Paris, France. → see p. 80 Orson Oxo Van Beek and Quinten Mestdagh: Ornamentum, Antwerp, Belgium. → see p. 76

Louise Bègue-Teissier and Romain Albers: The Benz, 2019. Athens, Greece. → see p. 78 Barry Llewellyn and Sarah Roseman: Fluid Furniture, 2020. Eindhoven, Netherlands. → see p. 74

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Cultural Narratives

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Materials also mirror our contemporary Western culture and have a cultural status.

The Benz by Louise and Romain Albers is a conceptual translation of the “benediction of cars”. By contrast, the symbolism of the car stands for an economically fast-growing society—signifying consumption—and therefore against every value of an austere and modest life as extolled by the Christian religion. The church vitrail made from discarded car windows questions whether the car industry is not a popular religion in itself? “The glorification of the speed, danger, modernity, innovation, mobility …”

Addressing another common cultural artefact, this time in daily domestic life, Barry Llewellyn and Sarah Roseman’s project Fluid Furniture addresses our relationship to cult objects like the beloved couch–“a relic from the bygone era of TV binging” and the slobism of the 90s. . Another interpretation of bygone eras in modern design process is the classical ornamental furniture in the project Ornamentum, which questions why there is such an absence within contemporary design of excessive decorations of the kind found in periods such as the Rococo. Using sharp-edged forms and cold aluminium surfaces, Orson Oxo Van Beek and Quinten Mestdagh create unfamiliar decorative furniture that “touches the boundaries between aesthetics and functionality.”

Anna Solal uses junk from contemporary culture, objects from a one-euro store, industrial parts, various pieces of cheap plastic, and broken smartphone screens and reassembles them in her mosaic-like sculptures.

Conceptually, she visualizes the way we get lost in the details and how our eye jumps from one part to another. We can perceive the character of the work and the materials used as a kind of “abstraction of contemporary civilisation, its constant short term distraction, lack of concentration, mass quantity but inability to include the whole.”

“I imagine curating as a way of thinking in terms of interconnections: linking objects, images, processes, people, locations, histories, and discourses in physical space like an active catalyst, generating twists, turns and tensions.”

—Maria Lind

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Maria Lind’s quote is suggestive of the mutual interconnection of physical objects and discourses. Linking back to the definition of the gap as “an empty space or opening in the middle of an object or between two objects” and as “a difference, especially an undesirable one, between two views or situations“, this section looks at what is happening in these gaps and if curatorial practice could be a means to bridge them. While the individual projects locate discrete gaps to investigate as the basis for creating projects, in the group show we brought them together in a process of connecting and bridging.

The contrast between the projects played a crucial part. These differences create a productive tension showing the diversity that allows different issues to be addressed and explored in parallel. When brought together, a multilayered interface of perspectives and practices emerges that could be read as harmonies, enriching or at first seemingly contradicting each other. But instead of building dualistic gaps “we don’t expend energy forming opposition, but reserve it for imagining alternatives.”41 The possibilities for such connections are manifold once the objects have been removed from their individual contexts and brought into contact with other projects. As exhibits, the assembled projects “are ‘in action’: that is, they obtain changing and dynamic meanings in the course of being related to one another. Ideally, these connections result from formal and aesthetic features.”42 But what I find more interesting is how they also relate to each other on the content level, and from that the common narrative about the topic of resource depletion and its opposite, where every project and concept brings in new aspects, which are then combined to produce a more complex image.

Emergence Between Gaps

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This dynamic could be linked to the concept of emergence, which describes the phenomena by connecting individual pieces to form a new whole. Understanding the whole by analysing the separate parts (analytical reductivism) focuses on the interconnections between the components, suggesting that there are limitations to an analytical approach that relies on separation. Initially, this concept originated from a new approach to science.43 It has already been used to describe the dynamics within the constellation of an exhibition and the emerging common narrative that is built through the relationship between the individual projects, perspectives, and concepts. It somehow adds another perspective to the projects and takes them beyond just being isolated undertakings; they coexist in relation to each other for that specific time frame:44 in our case, for the duration of the DDW, which was extended in our virtual showroom from one week to three months. Using this as a means to communicate complex ideas like resource extraction might be one approach to bringing these contributions together so that they coexist and come together to form a picture framed in such a way that the issue in question can be tackled jointly.

[40] Maria Lind (ed.), Performing the Curatorial: Within and Beyond Art (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2012).

[41] Irit Rogoff, “Turning”, e-flux journal #00 (November 2008), <https://www.eflux.com/journal/00/68470/turning/> [42] Beatrice von Bismarck, “Curatorial Criticality: On the Role of Freelance Curators in the Field of Contemporary Art”, in Marianne Eigenheer (ed.), [43] “Curating Critique”, on-curating.org 9 (2011), 20.

[44] See Paul O'Neill

46 “[…] it’s not about finding a solution together, but a new common perspective.”

–Fotini Takirdiki

45

The exhibited proposals are seeking to explore ways of re-envisioning our methods, infrastructures, and the meanings of materials—not assuming that we have answers but critically questioning the current resource system, which seems unlikely to work in the future. The aim is not simply to remain on this level of critical discourse but to go a step further and find prototypes not of solutions but of possible resolutions.46 This is revealed as a field of action and process rather than as something finished.

47 Gaps=Never a Comprehensive Endpoint Since many of the projects are based on applied material research, they actively demonstrate that these projects are designed for the real world. Still, prioritizing the questions evoked by the concepts, design methods, and material narratives is a means of framing the problems within resource politics and opening up discussion of these serious issues. This involves letting go of the expectations incumbent on an innovation-driven society to come up with solutions rather than exploring the problems it seeks to solve—reaching for the answer before the question has been fully asked. It is important to remain humble and to ask to what extent it is possible to achieve the accompanying social transformation that these aspirations imply. There should be no expectation of finding easy solutions to these complex challenges: rather, it is a matter of providing different perspectives.48 First and foremost, it should help people to develop a deeper understanding of the broader context and encourage them to reflect and think critically.49 Our curatorial constellation is fare from being a complete picture of resource depletion but rather a combination that allows a picture to be drawn. The collection offers an insight into the even more complex field of interconnection between material research and resource depletion.

In the best case, it is a contribution to offer and open up further discussions that arise through material narratives and production processes, thereby opening up gaps in the discourse, where the end is not simply developing (more sustainable) material alternatives. The open gaps are an invention to be developed and investigated further.

[45] [46] [47] [48]

Cf. interview with Fotini (State Studio: Curious Minds), 5. ct.

Gakjina, “Who Cares?”, 322.

Persekian and Ramer, “The Tipping Point”, 198.

Parasitic Reading Room

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“A Parasitic Reading Room is an open format gathering a multitude of voices.”

—dpr-barcelona & Rosario Talevi

50

To explore open thematic gaps that were not addressed in the exhibited projects and our interpretation and framing of the theme, we organized an additional programme as an adjunct to the exhibition to engage with the topic from a different perspective. Instead of a lecture or panel discussion, we preferred a more collaborative form of exchange in a collective exploration of the subject.

For this purpose, we invited Rosario Talevi as a guest curator to host and develop a Parasitic Reading Room—a performative reading session—as a live-stream event during the exhibition.

The Parasitic Reading Room is an ongoing project between dpr-barcelona and Rosario Talevi that „parasitises" ideas and additional content relating to venues and events,51 and in our case to our virtual exhibition and the theme of (Non)Depleted.

The Parasitic Reading Room consists of two components: a reader—a collection of collected text fragments—and an event in which the reader’s content is performed out loud. The Parasitic Reading Room’s aim is to be an open format that connects multiple voices. The format uses the book, or more precisely the act of reading, as a space of encounter—a “space of exchange, knowledge, and collaboration”, where “different points of view [co-exist], enriching each other, forming knowledge assemblages”.52

49 This format was initiated as a way to listen to the thoughts of the contributors on the proposed theme of (Non)Depleted. In preparation for our Parasitic Reading Room edition, we collected phrases, fragments, incomplete texts, and sentences selected by the exhibition’s designers and artists and by our curatorial team. The selection of content indicates what resonated with the group’s understanding of the term “depletion”.53 Besides the knowledge that emerged through the projects as an epistemic formulation of both content and practice translated into objects, the Parasitic Reading Room brought in “other sources of knowledge”.54 The assembled collection of fragments opened up a broader view of the exhibition’s theme, hinting at gaps that were not addressed within the show.

The spectrum of content ranged from the geopolitical struggles in South America driven by resource politics, a new radical approach to a cartography of soil, and a questioning of the term “solution”, set against the idea of what would happen if we were to engage with the impossible. This is shown in texts, images, manifestos, and poems: from feminist thinkers (like Donna Haraway and Anna Tsing), critical material scientists, activists, queer theorists, and investigative journalists. All this additional content enriched the exhibition, bringing in the otherwise hidden perspective of inspirational content within an exhibition, coming from both the curatorial team and the contributors.

[50] “The Parasitic Reading Room: (Non)Depleted—A New Perspective or Deplition [sic] of a New Source?“, dpr-barcelona, 26 November 2020, 6, <https:// issuu.com/ethel.baraona/docs/non-depleted> [51] “The Parasitic Reading Room”, dpr-barcelona, 11 March 2019, <https://dprbcn. wordpress.com/2019/03/11/parasitic-reading-room/> [52] Ethel Baraona Pohl and César Reyes Nájera, “Spaces of Encounter: The Performative Art of Reading”, The Architectural Review, 18 January 2019, <https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/spaces-of-encounter-the-performative-art-of-reading> [53] Parasitic Reading Room Reader see p. xx [54] “The Parasitic Reading Room”.

CONCLUSION

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Coming to my conclusion, which I would like to start by quoting Igrit Rudoff talking about “the gap (or différance) between a projects' proposition and it's inability to carry out that very proposition, as it is often the case that there is a gap between the intention of an exhibition or projects and its (physical/ concrete) realisation.”54 That, in a way, reflects my experience of abstraction through the show’s virtual representation, which made some aspects of my theoretical analysis, like the “Emergence between Gaps” quite abstract. Indeed, throughout the development of this thesis, a challenging barrier for myself between theori sing and practising, came from the missing physical exploration and on-site interactions. On the other hand, anyhow, acknowledging the in-between state and the motivation to explore this missing parts in further projects and the actual physical exhibition of (Non)Depleted at Gr_und.55 The thesis’s primary aim was to use the association of gaps to open the discourse within the framing on both levels: the thematic discussion of environmental breakdown and the way of practising curatorially.

My intention in this thesis was to explore gaps in a more empowering and accepting way to activate and celebrate the time where we open other opportunities by breaking continuity, the enrichment which can come from different perspectives, the emerging narrative between objects and discourses, and the missing part(s) as a state of the process.

[54] tranzit.hu, “Curatorial Dictionary”, 239.

[55] Gr_und is a nonprofit artist-run space situated in Wedding, Berlin. With its 170m2 it is an active space for the materialisation of curated concepts. Using multi-displinary methods of visual art, performance, sound and linguistics. <https://gr-und.com/>

51

Reflecting on if it is helpful to look at curatorial practice through the lens of the gaps, I could conclude that it is two-sided. On the one side, it can empower new voices to find their place and enrich the curatorial field through a new perspective and actively open gaps in public discourse. Whereby on the other, it has to be acknowledged that there is a huge (social) gap to overcome the intellectual and exclusive infrastructure for many people. In this sense, the curatorial practice is also creating social gaps. This aspect was not in-depth addressed in my thesis.

It might be more suitable to look from the perspective of dicovering gaps in the thematic discussion, which drives a continuous process by framing and interpreting, offering new angles, and providing new insights.

This dynamic seems to be necessary to grasp the complexity of socio-ecological challenges and keep public conciseness discourse. Our exhibition is just a contribution to countless examples of ecological, political, and social committed curatorial programs. Where actively gaps in current systems are opened, questioned and brought to public visibility. And even if there is an interruption like the pandemic’s circumstance, the curatorial practice tried to use that gap to develop and rethink their formats to continue providing a platform to analyse urgent questions critically.

In the state of temporary conclusion, I reflect on the endless amount of work done and yet to be done; between closing knowledge gaps–through research, practising, and learning from the projects and people included in the show–and the gaps discovered during this process.

In my further practice, I aim to improve the blind spot as much as possible and maybe tell myself that these gaps are part of the process.

PROJECT DESCRIPTIONS

In the following, the fourteen projects are presented in the own words by the designers and artists.

53

Paulo Arraiano: As Always, Just a Matter of Perspective, 2017. Animated Gif On LCD Screen Wall. Lisbon, Portugal. Photo Credits: NASA & Paulo Arraiano

54

55 “As Always, Just a Matter of Perspective” Paulo Arraiano

Faced with the unprecedented shift from direct life experience to an artificial way of connecting / disconnecting with the natural world, Interacting through analogic and electronic signals, guided by information that travels throughout satellites, orbit bodies, created by man that, directly via mobile protheses, act as new divinities controlling via GPS data our daily life performance.

A new paradigm alters our perception of time, space and reality, in contrast to the availability of a sensory contemplation. The “digital act” contrasts and coexists with our human nature in an eternal cross communication.

A moment in time where matter/non-matter dialogue in a layer of digital blandness, where mood manipulation and the non-spontaneity of trying “too hard” as a mode of indifference is part of our daily swipes, enjoying the illusion and escapism of a post-emotional society, where everything is stored into a cloud or depends on the wifi.

A particular moment where human bodies create a physical distance towards dematerialisation and of the importance of the object, where speed of a post-digital generation dictates time and artificially replaces the natural, contributing for a transformation of human perception.

These entities—satellites—also trough digital regi stration, connect us in a pictorial way to the landscape, and in that sense to flora, body and skin. Here technology and the digital will be the element that remembers and re-connects us to the the elements that were here even before our physical presence. Those elements symbiotically contribute to drive the body to its ancient basic elements of human existence although constantly perceived by technology.

Davide Piscitelli: RATIONE SOLI, 2019. Computer-generated imagery (CGI).

London, United Kingdom. Photo Credits: Davide Piscitelli

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“RATIONE SOLI” Davide Piscitelli

57

Ratione Soli is an ongoing investigation on the resulting aesthetic of virtual place-making practice using CG assets. The digital aesthetic reinforces, like a doubly exposed environment, the deep-rooted myth of what we call nature; often seen as something detached from humanity. These representations are not neutral, they are infused with the norm of the society that builds it.

Like parks in our cities, the 3D scanned library is a constructed and selected collection of biospheric objects that fit our idea of beauty and purity, lacking any signs of disease, incidences or the artificial. There is no nature without the artificial and there is no artificial without nature. Ratione Soli proposes an alternative tool for generating digital rocks, in the hope that it will reveal the dogmas behind virtual place-making.

In general with CGI, a virtual rock is obtained starting with a simple geometry like a sphere. With a linear approach, it is modified within a few steps to simulate the shape of a rock. Texturing and lighting helps create the illusion. Ratione Soli is an alternative procedural process, where the algorithmic generation of a rock is influenced by external factors, in this case digitised human waste. By considering external elements—like human activity—the resulting simulation does not imitate our collective idea of a rock but generates another concept of what a rock could be today—a (digital) plastiglomerate—in order to disrupt the constructed dualism between human and nature.

Vincents Snijders: Altered Landscape, 2019. Clay, 25 × 25 × 40 cm. Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Photo Credits: Vincents Snijders

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“Altered Landscape” Vincent Snijders

59

“A production technique that mimics the process of mankind changes landscape.”

Throughout history our perception of “the wild” has changed; from the place where demons roam to the “sublime”.

Along with perception, also the reasons why we altered landscapes has changed; from religion to industry to leisure. We are no longer participants of nature but instead dominating her. Even though the effects of this act are ugly, there is a lot of beauty in the process of a landscaped that is worked upon, the industry is creating monuments in the act of destroying.

A man-made machine that works on plaster moulds as if it is a landscape, unique drill bits digg in the mould and take away sediment. This process creates shapes and profiles in the plaster, that after casting it in slip clay, will become visible on the vases, the products of the landscape. The vase has been a medium for storytelling throughout history; from mythologies to war-stories. Now its telling the tale of nature being consumed by human.and the sand that leaves the structure on the Alabaster creates its own, stone-like material.

Kajsa Melchior: Fictive Erosion, 2019. Sandstone, 45 × 35 cm.

Stockholm, Sweden. Photo Credits: Wavy.se

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“Fictive Erosion” Kajsa Melchior

61

“Geology is a great source of inspiration” Fictive Erosion consists of three collections which all derives from a future scenario where human machines are forbidden due to environmental issues.

The collections are speculative results of an ongoing investigation of how to adapt formation processes in nature into design methods.

Geology is a great source of inspiration. The sculptures are made from sand that has been exposed to forces such as wind and water, but also from pressure created by my own body. Each sculpture is created in sand and developed with Alabaster. The method makes each shape unique and the sand that leaves the structure on the Alabaster creates its own, stonelike material.

Rollo Bryant: SYNERGY, 2019. Bioplastic, Salt, Acrylic Glass, Steel, Aluminum, LED Strip, 28 × 28 × 50 cm. Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Photo Credits: Rollo Brayant.

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“SYNERGY” Rollo Bryant

63

This project is focused on utilising the natural formation and crystallisation of salt as a texture. The unpredictable nature of both materials work harmoniously together to form a hard solution with unique qualities. The bioplastic aids this natural forming of salt at the surface because of its high moisture content, long curing time and irregular mixture, which proliferates its distribution and allows time for the salt to condense.

Embracing the inherent characteristics of bioplastic and using them to dictate the form and functionality of the outcome is prioritised. The stickiness is emphasised through the organic flow and spikey texture, the cracking used to pronounce depth and reference its ephemeral nature, and the varying translucencies to disguise function. The next step will be exploring this method of a coating that disguises its use, through integrating light tubes into organic structures that are hidden under a layer of bioplastic and only visible when illuminated.

Blast Studio: Fungi Print, 2020. Urban waste (coffee cups, pizza bowes...), mycilium.

London, United Kingdom. Photo Credits: Blast Studio

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“Fungi Print” Blast Studio

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“Our pieces are designed by humans, made by robots and taken over by fungi.”

Taking inspiration from natural ecosystems, we aim to transform waste from the city into objects and architecture thanks to technology & fungi. We developed a short cycle where we collect coffee cup waste from cafés around London and transform them thanks to fungi and robots into art pieces and architecture.

Mycelium naturally recycles organic waste in woods, we make it recycle urban waste in cities. We 3d print shapes inspired by nature with our waste material on which the organism grows, changing their shape and giving them unique unpredictable colors and patterns and a soft velvety touch like a peach skin. The pieces are designed as architectures for fungi in which they have the right humidity and temperature they need to grow to their fullest.

Claudia Bumb: Algae as Building Blocks, 2020. Green micro-alga, Chlorella vulgaris, and a macro-alga Cladophora. Hannover, Germany. Photo Credits: Studio Tusch

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“Algae as Building Blocks” Claudia Bumb

67

The project was supported

by Hafven

An investigation into the potentials of algae as a future building material: Construction industries represent the most resource-intensive industrial sector, with sand being ranked as the second most consumed resource— after water.

Algae as Building Blocks is a speculative design research, bringing the potentialities of algae as a rapidly regrowing material into focus. Not only do algae feed from components, which we perceive as waste,—such as substances from domestic sewage, agricultural run-off or nutrient surplus from fish farms, the organism also captures crucial amounts of CO2 inside its biomass. This capacity to store CO2 could be used as one among other possible strategies in combating climate change.

The installation creates a dialogue between the vibrant living being and the manually converted material “algaecrete” linked through steel bars, commonly used in concrete processing. Consisting of two widely distributed types of algae, a green microalga Chlorella vulgaris, and a macroalga Cladophora, the lime-enriched material becomes a solid foundation of the displayed objects.

crafting plastics! studio: Nuatan Tableware, 2019. 100% biobased material polymerized from starch and metabolized by microorganisms Bratislava, Slovakia. Photo Credits: Patrícia Kvasňovská

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69 “Nutan Tableware” crafting plastics! studio

The project offers a closed-loop system solution, a bioplastic alternative to single-use plastic tableware. From reusable to-go coffee cups to a limited edition of handcrafted bioplastic kitchenware objects, the studio aims to question the future of foodware for households and takeaways.

Collection 6 consists of single-piece plates and boards as a result of experimentation with various self-developed techniques for working with biopolymers. Experimenting with different material attributes and the use of mineral or vegetable pigments has led to novel combinations in each piece.

As a part of crafting plastics!'s research, combining low craft techniques with high-tech machinery, allow to explore the material's potential applications, aesthetic and form and be prepared for integration of circular materials to consumer goods systems and services.

Nuatan is a brand for bioplastics solutions for value added products. By merging circular design approach and material science, we are bringing new innovative materials into our day-to-day life. Our solutions are using biodegradable, 100% biobased material polymerized from starch and metabolized by microorganisms.

Studio KBB: Inside Out, 2019. Cow Intestines, steel wires, softline tubes.

Copenhagen, Denmark. Photo Credits: Olivia Rohde

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“Inside Out” Studio KBB

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We already value the milk, the meat, the skin as well as other parts of the cow. But there are parts of the cow that hold no apparent human value. With a strong interest in making use of the unused, Kathrine Barbro Bendixen has found a “second life” for the unloved innards of the cow—the intestines.

This piece is one of many light sculptures in the project Inside Out which is an examination of this organic waste material.

The project is a visual exploration of the endless possibilities and qualities of a material that has strength, versatility, transparency and natural glue. The acrylic tubes both emphasize the characteristics of the intestines natural shape as well as add a contrast to its organic state and the LED-lights at the end of them underlines the unmistakable beauty of an often disgusted material.

Elissa Brunato: Bio Iridescent Sequin, 2019. Wood-originating matter.

London, United Kingdom. Photo Credits: Elissa Brunato

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“Bio Iridescent Sequin” Elissa Brunato

73 Collaborations: RISE Research Institutes of Sweden

Within the current fashion and textiles system, the embroidery industry is limited by unsustainable material options. Beads and sequins are industrially made from low cost petroleum-derived plastic and consequently have become a ubiquitous commodity of our throwaway society. Sequins, loved for their shiny effects contain toxic and carcinogenic chemicals. They are leaking into the environment through manufacture sites, garment factories, consumer use and ultimately their end of life disposal. Looking into consumer patterns on a mass scale, it is unfortunately also impractical for sequins to be recycled from the base fabric. Consequently, these tiny plastic components impose a huge environmental problem and contribute largely to microplastic pollution.

The Bio Iridescent Sequin manifests as a holistic alternative to the hazardous plastic sequin. Made entirely from cellulose, the most abundant plant-based polymer which is present in all plants, the material’s origin and compostable nature form a biological circle. Cellulose is a highly renewable, abundant and carbon-sequestering raw material providing functional, economic and environmental benefits.

Inspired by the way colourful beetle and butterfly wings shimmer iridescently and nevertheless are a part of naturally occurring biological lifecycles, these sequins gives rise to colourful effects by means of their inherent cellulosic structure. Light hitting this structure is reflected into vibrant, glittering colours, a phenomenon also known as ‘structural colouration’.

In this way, the Bio Iridescent Sequin is free of petrochemicals, metals or pigments and becomes a non-toxic and colourfast alternative.

Barry Llewellyn and Sarah Roseman: Lalalamp, 2020. Foam, Wood, Metal, 200 × 115 × 40 cm. Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Photo Credits: Barry Llewellyn and Sarah Roseman

Barry Llewellyn and Sarah Roseman: Chchchair, 2020. Polyester, Wood, Textile, 85 × 75 × 65 cm. Photo Credits: Barry Llewellyn and Sarah Roseman

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“Fluid Furniture” Barry Llewellyn & Sarah Roseman

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The human habitat is expanding. People dash to the frontiers—discarding their derelict couches. In the midst of this race, we focus on grounding this process by dealing with the materials left behind.

Fluid furniture is a research into the new horizon of the material world. Taking a couch—a relic from the bygone era of TV binging, slobism of the 90s, The Simpsons sofa—we extract the humble components, relieving it of its former state. Preparing for a future where the aftermath of exponential resource consumption has stripped the world of usable virgin material, how will our relationship to the physical world change?

In a future with universal scarcity, even the materials we take for granted will hold an important value. It will become a necessity to appreciate the act of regeneration. Consequently, the resulting objects slow down the speed of consumption, lead to the rebirth of craftsmanship and see beauty in the inconsistencies of used materials.

Fluid Furniture comprises of Lalalamp and Chchchair which are artifacts of the transitional state between the past and the future. The process was carried out in quarantine as our domestic space became a furniture transformation factory. The restraints of working at home allowed for the creation of custom machines to carry out custom processes. From weaving, melting, rope making and sculpting, we utilised all the ingredients found in curbside couches to form our creations.

Orson Oxo Van Beek and Quinten Mestdagh : Ornamentum, 2020. Aluminum.

Antwerp, Belgium. Photo Credits: Michael Smits with art direction by Studio M.

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77 “Ornamentum” Orson Oxo Van Beek &Quinten Mestdagh Coutesy: Everyday Gallery

The pieces were initially developed with highly detailed graphical depictions of our interpretation of modern-day ornaments The inspiration initially started with research into classical ornamental furniture periods such as the Rococo, Baroque, Renaissance, to name a few. Both Orson Oxo Van Beek and Quinten Mestdagh have a fascination with ornamental and decorative furniture and questioned why there is such an absence of excessive decorations within contemporary design. This collection aimed to create a collection of unfamiliar decorative furniture that touches the boundaries between aesthetics and functionality.

As a result of this, they transitioned themselves as modern-day craftsmen by a time-consuming design process that reflects itself within the decorated embellishments.

Louise Bègue-Teissier and Romain Albers: The Benz, 2019. Discarded carwindow, steel. 130 × 260 × 3 cm. Athens, Greece. Photo Credits: Louise Bègue-Teissier and Romain Albers

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79 “THE BENZ” Louise Bègue-Teissier & Romain Albers

”benedictio vehiculi seu currus“ Cars benedictions appeared in the beginning of the XX century.

High symbole of our modern fast society of consumption, the concept of the automobile stands against every values of an auster and modest life that extol the christian religion.

But the car industry isn’t it a commun religion in itself?

Glorification of the speed, danger, modernity, innovation, mobility...

The Benz vitrail stands for a new liturgical element based on this car cult in our world where the amount of garages compete with the number of churches.

Anna Solal: Mirror, 2017/2018. Mirror, razor, tule, plastic, hairclips, metalic thread, ropes. Paris, France.

Courtesy: New Galerie

Anna Solal: The Sink, 2019. Broken Ipad-screen, metalic thread, bike chain, scarf, Ipad, plastic. Paris, France.

Courtesy: New Galerie

Anna Solal: Bloc-Notes, 2017/8. Plastic parts, hair clips, car carpet, metal parts, ropes, broken smart phone screens, bike chains, plastic parts, carpet, plastic supermarket box grid, tie, belt, tulle, combs, metal rods, cloth, metal thread, 75 × 64 × 4 cm. Pasis, France. Courtesy: New Galerie.

“La Salle de Bain/ La Convalescence” Anna Solal

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Text by Michal Novotný Coutesy: New Galerie

“I’m attractive and intelligent, and it pleases me that I’m being watched. And if I happen to tell a lie or two from time to time, it’s only so you don’t paint a bad picture of me. Orhan PamUnited Kingdom: My name is Red.” Anna is using junk of the contemporary culture, objects from one euro shops, industrial parts, different pieces of cheap plastic, broken smartphone screens.

Those are, however, very laboriously and in a somehow primitive way joint, assembled in new compositions, not unlike 3D mosaics. Their identity is to a certain extent lost, but with a bit of focus it is still recognisable.

Certain concentration, but also distraction, is projected in the way we perceive the work of Anna; how we are getting lost in the details, our sight jumping from one part to another. We may perceive the character of the work and the used materials as a sort of abstraction of contemporary civilisation, its constant short term distraction, lack of concentration, mass quantity but inability to include the whole. There is also something rough and brutal about Anna’s works, in the impudency, rudimentarity of the treatment, that follows the cheapness of the original objects, but almost with a somehow neurotic drive.

CONTRIBUTORS’ BIOGRAPHIES Anna Solal is a French artist based in Paris. The artist's aesthetic appreciation for junky products results in appealing, seemingly lighthearted assemblages. Her intention with these works, however, is to help break unhealthy addictions and bad habits. Using traditional religious iconography to describe a widespread modern malaise, Solal's artworks invoked miracle cures for profligate consumerism and technology overload.

Barry Llewellyn is a designer from Ireland, studying at Design Academy Eindhoven. His fascination lies in installation and functional art pieces, with a focus on form and structure.

Blast Studio (The Biological Laboratory of Architecture and Sensitive Technologies) is a group founded in 2018 to explore the possible relationships between new technologies and living things to develop new processes of artistic and architectural creation.

Davide Piscitelli is an artist and researcher based in London. He investigates topics that transcend the temporality and space of our human experience and uses his practice to question our toohuman-centric culture. His recent work focuses on the concept of outside to question the Western dualism between human and nature. He defines his approach as antidisciplinary.

Elissa Brunato explores where human demands meet wider ecological systems. Intrigued by material and surface tactility, Elissa Brunato previously worked in Embroidery Design / Production, both for Ready-to-Wear and Haute Couture studios. During this period, she gained first-hand experience of the global environmental implications that distantly taken design choices can have.

dpr-barcelona is an architectural research practice based in Barcelona, dealing with three main lines: publishing, criticism and curating. Their Claudia Bumb is a transformation designer with work explores how architecture as discipline a focus on circular strategies and new materi- reacts to politics, technology, economy, and social als. MA Eco-Social Design Conceptual Design, issues.

Circular Design and Material Research.

Kajsa Melchior is an independent designer and Crafting plastics! studio was founded in 2016 sculptor based in Stockholm. Her work has a by-product designer Vlasta Kubušová and design critical approach and investigates in the production designer Miroslav Král. The studio borderlands between furniture and sculpture, is based between Berlin and Bratislava. Realising facts and fiction. The work are explorations of dynamic research and innovation in materials and how concepts such as developing and erosion can design, they provide a base for interdisciplinary form the basis of spatial and material investigaprogress towards enjoyable sustainability and tions and challenges aesthetic standards as they more transparent production. are created through sand, compressed air and bodily imprints.

83 Louise Bègue-Teissier & Romain Alberš ‘ approach to their creations and their uchronic aesthetics revolves around fictional archaeology.

Working with mix media, sculpture, digital, image, they create and encapsulate ambiguous in-between spaces, era or situations, as future relics of the present. The truth is instable and allows a questionable interpretation of myths, religion and archives.

Mathias Malm is a Norwegian-born designer whose work combines his interests in computer-generative technology, biology and craft.

During his time at The Design Academy Eindhoven, Mathias has seamlessly blended the natural with the technological, and the organic with the manufactured. By modifying mathematical patterns found in nature, Mathias produces functional objects that lament the destruction of the very organisms that inspire the work.

Nina Blume is a Berlin-based design student.

Her practice engages with multiple socioecological challenges and experiments with formats on how to unpack these questions collectively.

Ranging from editorial, curatorial, and collaborative design projects. She is a team member of the project space Gr_und and part of the curatorial team (Non)Depleted.

Oliverio Segura is an Argentine artist and DJ based in Mexico City. His artistic project explores issues such as time, space, the body, physical and mental states through various media. He has studied Political Science (USAL), Economics/ Business Administration (UBA) and Electronic Arts (UNTREF).

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84 Orson Oxo Van Beek Orson is a spatial designer who primarily specialises in contemporary furniture and spatial installations. In 2019 he graduated cum laude at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, where he was part of the Man & Communication department. He currently divides his work between Antwerp, where he focusses on his own practice, and Rotterdam, where he works as a designer for Studio Dennis Vanderbroeck.

Rosario Talevi is a Berlin-based architect, curator, editor and educator interested in critical spatial practice (Rendell), transformative pedagogies and feminist futures. Her work advances architecture as a form of agency—in its transformative sense and in its capacity of acting otherwise (Schneider) and as a form of care—one that provides the political stakes to repair our broken world (Tronto). She is co-director of the Floating University, where she curates the Urban Practice Paulo Arraiano's research relates to the idea of programme and Climate Care, a festival engavisual seismography, assessing surges concer- ged with theory and practice at the intersection ning new natural, social and cultural paradigms. of climate challenges, ethics of care and environThis artistic production interweaves with his mental humanities. research which involves matter and anti-matter, and engages the body, the landscape and tech- Sarah Roseman is a designer from Canada who nology to address questions concerning climate moved to the Netherlands to study at the Design changes, biosphere, extinction, transhumanism Academy Eindhoven. Her work is primarily focuand the Anthropocene. sed on exploring colour and material within the realm of textiles and surface.

Quinten Mestdagh from the Royal Academy Of Fine Arts Antwerp has a great talent, his Sebastian Guzman Olmos is an Argentine desiggarments are spectacular and complex. They ner and researcher who is currently enrolled at reflect our modern obsession for messages and Design Academy Eindhoven's Media and Culture personality. department with a minor in Radical Ecologies.

He is a contributor to The Embassy of Circular Rollo Bryant specialises in working techniques and Biobased Building since 2020. Also has been that merge freehand sculpting with computa- teaching critical-like and material design worktional software—focused on projects that create shops on several Dutch institutions and positive environmental change while promoting universities. the idea that design can still be as appealing and versatile, if not more so, even with this new chal- Studio KBB (Kathrine Barbro Bendixen) is a lenge.

Danish designer with graduation from Design Academy Eindhoven. In her work, she explores unusual and unused materials and sets them in new settings–resulting in several light sculptures, showing different ways of using the intestines' transparency.

85 Vincent Snijders' work often has an anthropological starting point, zooming in and reflecting on mankind's oddities. He aims at creating an experience with objects or installations as a medium to guide through a narrative. The result in different scales: from scenography, performance and stage design to artefacts and furniture. He is currently enrolled at Design Academy Eindhoven's Media and Culture department.

BIBILOGRAPHY Anderson, Richard 11.06.2012. Resource depletion: Opportunity or looming catastrophe? BBC News, <https:// www.bbc.com/news/business-16391040> Antonelli, Paola 23.05.2014. The New Frontiers of Design. O'Reilly, <https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=u6mDAEOfGWQ&ab_channel=O%27Reilly> Arets, Daniëlle 2016/17. Design For Debate–Exploring the role of Design in policy making. In Arets, Radical Ecologies_Deisgn for the Risk Society. Eindhoven: The Readership in Strategic Creativity.

Bauer, Ute Meta 2019. Humble Means. In Madoff (ed.), What about Activism? Berlin: Sternberg Press.

Banks, Sarah with Armstrong, Andrea 2014. Using Co-Inquiry to Study Co-Inquiry: Community-University Perspectives on Research. Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship, http://jces.ua.edu/using-co-inquiry-to-study-co-inquiry-community-university-perspectives-on-research/. dpr-barcelona 26.11.2020. The Parasitic Reading Room: (Non) Depleted—A New Perspective or Deplition [sic] of a New Source? <https://issuu.com/ethel. baraona/docs/non-depleted> 11.03.2019. Parasitic Reading Room. <https:// dprbcn.wordpress.com/2019/03/11/parasitic-reading-room/>

Dutch Design Week 21.10.2020. DDW Trend: Rebalancing of materials research, <https://ddw.nl/en/magazinearchive/580/ddw-trend-rebalancing-of-materials-research> Programme ’20, accessed 18 February 2021, <https://ddw.nl/en/programme> Fuad-LUnited Kingdome, Alastair 2017. Designing New Social Imaginaries. In Arets, Radical Ecologies: Designing For The Risk Society. Eindhoven: The Readership in Strategic Creativity.

Gakjina, Mira 2020. Who Cares? Art Institutions and The Environmental Crisis. In Ziólkowska (ed.), Plasticity of the Planet: On Environmental Challenge for Art and Its Institutions. xx: Mousse Publishing.

Holert, Tom 2020. Knowledge Beside Itself. Berlin: Sterbergpress.

Jackson, Georgina 2015. And the question is… In O’Neill and Wilson (eds.) Curating Research. London: Open Edition / De Apell.

La Casa Encendida 26.06.2020. La institución como lugar de aprendizaje con Antonia Alampi y Carolina Rito, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBezbT6qJA&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=LaCasaEncendida.

Lind, Maria 2012. Performing the Curatorial Within and Beyond Art. Berlin: Sternberg Press.

87 2011. The Curatorial. In Brian Kuan Wood (Hrsg.) Selected Maria Lind Writings. Berlin: Sternberg Press.

Madoff, Steven Henry 2019. What About Activism? Berlin: Sternberg Press.

Nájera, César Reye and Pohl, Ethel Baraona 18.01.2019. Spaces of Encounter: The Performative Art of Reading. The Architectural Review, <https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/ spaces-of-encounter-the-performative-art-ofreading> O’Neill, Paul 2015. Curating Research. London: Occasional Table, Open Editions / de Apple.

Orbist, Hans Ulrich 2019. My Not-Manifesto for Art, Society, and Mondialité. In Madoff (ed.),What About Activism? Berlin: Sternberg Press.

Sheikh, Simon 2010. Vectors of the Possible Newsletter. BAK basis voor actuele kunst.

2015. Toward the Exhibition as Research. In O’Neill and Wilson (eds.) Curating Research.

London: Open Edition / De Apell. tranzit.hu 2015. Curatorial Dictionary: Unpacking the Oxymoron. In O’Neill and Wilson (eds.) Curating Research. London: Occasional Table, Open Editions / de Apple.

Triscott, Nicola 2017. Art and Intervention in the Stewardship of the Planetary Commons: Towards a Curatorial Model of Co-inquiry. <https://nicolatriscott.files. wordpress.com/2017/11/ntriscott_phdcommentary_final.pdf>

Persekian, Jack 2019. The Tipping Point. In Madoff (ed.) What About Activism? Berlin: Sternberg Press.

Von Bismarck, Beatrice 09/2011. Curatorial Criticality–On the Role of Freelance Curator in The Field of Contemporary Art. In Marianne Eigenheer Curating Critique. On.Curating.org.

2012. Cultures of the Curatorial. Berlin: Sternberg Press.

Ramer, Alison Carmel 2019. The Tipping Point. In Madoff (ed.) What About Activism? Berlin: Sternberg Press.

Weski, Thomas 2012. Cultures of the Curatorial. Berlin: Sternberg Press.

Rogoff, Irit 2008. Turning. In e-flux Journal #00. <https:// www.e-flux.com/journal/00/68470/turning/>

Wilson, Mick 2015. Curating Research. London: Occasional Table, Open Editions / de Apple.

Schlafaff, Jörn 2012. Cultures of the Curatorial. Berlin: Sternberg Press.

Winder, Jill 2010. Vectors of the Possible Newsletter. BAK basis voor actuele kunst.

PHOTO CREDITS Barry Llewellyn & Sarah Roseman 2020. Barry Llewellyn & Sarah Roseman, Lalalamp. Eindhoven, The Netherlands 2020. Barry Llewellyn & Sarah Roseman, Chchchair. Eindhoven, The Netherlands Blast Studio 2020. Blast Studio, Fungi Print.

London, United Kingdom.

Davide Piscitelli 2019. Davide Piscitelli, RATIONE SOLI. London, United Kingdom.

Elissa Brunato 2019. Elissa Brunato, Bio Iridescent Sequin.

London, United Kingdom.

Louise Bègue-Teissier & Romain Albers 2019. Louise Bègue-Teissier & Romain Albers, The Benz. Athens, Greece.

NASA & Paulo Arraiano 2017. Paulo Arraiano, As Always, Just a Matter of Perspective. Lisbon, Portugal.

New Galerie 2019. Anna Solal, The Sink (LA SALLE DE BAIN). Paris, France.

2017/18. Anna Solal, Mirror. Paris, France.

2017. Anna Solal, Bloc Notes. Paris, France.

Olivia Rohde 2019. Studio KBB, Inside Out. Copenhagen, Denmark.

Patrícia Kvasňovská 2019. crafting! plastics, Nuatan Tableware.

Bratislava, Slovakia.

Rollo Bryant 2019. Rollo Bryant, SYNERGY Salt Lamp.

Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Studio Tusch 2020. Claudia Bumb, Algae as Building Blocks.

Hannover, Germany.

Vincents Snijders 2019. Vincents Snijders, Altered Landscape.

Rotterdam, The Netherlands Wavy.se 2019. Kajsa Melchior, Fictive Erosion.

Stockholm, Sweden.

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Hiermit erkläre ich, dass ich die vorliegende Arbeit selbständig verfasst und keine anderen als die angegebenen Hilfsmittel und Quellen benutzt habe.Teile der Arbeit oder die Arbeit an sich wurden nicht an anderer Stelle als Prüfungsleistung vorgelegt. Die Passagen der Arbeit, die fremden Werken (dazu zählen auch Internetquellen) wörtlich oder sinngemäß entnommen sind, sind unter Angabe der Quellen und unter Beachtung der im Wissenschaftsbereich geltenden allgemeinen Zitierregelungen gekennzeichnet.

Potsdam, 06.03.2021

IMPRINT Nina Blume Department of Design Spring 2021 Design & Text Nina Blume Typography Keroine Doux Extreme by Charlotte Rohde Keroine Intense Legere by Charlotte Rohde Proofreading Simon Cowper Contact Schönhauser Allee 20 10435, Berlin @_nina.blume 0177 4333392

Thanks to Alexandra Martini, Ana Lisa Alperovich, Anna Solal, Barry Llewellyn, Blast Studio, Charlotte Rohde, Claudia Bumb, Cédric Mantel, Crafting plastics! studio, Damien Sayer, Davide Piscitelli, Dutch Design Foundation, Elliot Frydenberg, Elissa Brunato, Fotini Takirdiki, Henry Blume, Jasper Bloem, James Verhille, Johanna Honkomp, Josephine Knoll, Kajsa Melchior, Louise Bègue-Teissier, Maren Möhlenkamp, Mathias Malm, Myriel Milicevic, Oliverio Segura, Orson Oxo Van Beek, Paulo Arraiano, Quinten Mestdagh, Rollo Bryant, Romain Albers, Rosario Talevi, Sandra Groll, Sarah Roseman, Sebastian Guzman Olmos, Simon Cowper, Simone Verkuijlen, Ute Blume, Studio KBB, Vincent Snijders, Yonca Ergen.

“From what we gather you're referring to gaps as an idea of space surrounding projects of a shared theme, and at points of common ideas, they create bridges that connect the projects into a framework of ideas?”

—Barry Llewellyn and Sarah Roseman “The gaps occur when I absorb science and then put what I have learned into my experimental art world. I allow myself to understand science from my position, which means that I put it all in relation to something I know when I learn.”

—Kajsa Melchoir “I always think these digital exhibitions don’t do the works justice, especially not in group exhibitions.

Therefore, I think it’s difficult for me to answer your question to be honest as my experience with the exhibition (same with the other digital exhibitions) was to click through them a single time and that’s where it stoped for me.”

—Orosn Oxo Van Beek “This may sound banal but the main gap of the exhibition was created by the variable of the virus. Not being able to express our work on a physical object and collecting them in a physical place where we could share, listen and learn from each other was the main gap of (Non)Depleted. This also reflects a wider socio-condition we are living with. On the other hand, from it emerged the desire to do it again” —Davide Piscitelli

These quotes from the exhibition contributors were collected as a response to the question of what gaps they discovered within (Non)Depleted or their own practice.