Slovenian Design Goes to Milan

27/04/2022 - Slovenian design arrives in Milan: on the occasion of Design Week the spaces of Opificio 31 in via Tortona will host the New Times (Made in Slovenia) exhibition.

Through the products hosted at this exhibition the designers offer a critique of the existing economic and social systems as well as a different perspective on production. They bring new uses, new functionalities and materiality as well as a concern for healthy environments and society. They share a desire to reveal the background behind the product development process and the idea of using good design to build a community. They emphasise the value of combining digital and manual work, with the latter serving as a tool for people’s psychosocial empowerment.

The selection of twenty-two products have been awarded the “Made in Slovenia” mark of excellence. The projects have been selected from an open call for participation by the committee of experts: designer Luka Stepan, service designer Ana Kyra Bekš, architect and designer Primož Jeza, curator for architecture and design Maja Vardjan, architect and head of programme at CzK Mika Cimolini.

The presented designers are looking for ways to reconnect people into a community, motivate them to look up from their screens, and to start socialising again. Their message is this: after we’ve been separated by the pandemic, discrimination, racisms and nationalisms, mistrust of state institutions, economic stratification, and climate change, it is design that can bring us back together.
   
To mention just a few: With her Olive vases Brina Steblovnik aspires to preserve and develop manual glass shaping skills, which are gradually being lost to robots.  Darja Malešič’s Pra carpet and the modern embroidered self-portrait SELFI by Oloop engage their users with handwork as a tool for personal and community empowerment.  The transition from the digital to the material is at the heart of Kobeiagi Kilims’ Pattern Generator project, which engages carpet buyers in hand production through computer-controlled co-creation of the final product. The Krater capsule and cup explore the use of bio-composites and wild urban clay collected on a construction site. In her Fragile Bodies project young artist Maruša Mazej looks at disposable objects.  Lučka Berlot and Ági Göb on the other hand have taken pieces of plastic harvested from the sea and frozen them into a semi-transparent composite material that resembles colourful terrazzo. Primož Jeza’s oneandhalfmilionchair is made from shredded banknotes, it treats money as a waste material generated by an overly industrialised society that has dematerialised money.  Designers Miha Artnak and Srđan Prodanović are convinced that we can only come together as a society under the common flag of planet Earth by leaving our cultural, national, and other differences represented by national symbols aside. The exhibition is organised by Centre for Creativity (CzK) in cooperation between the Centre for Creativity/MAO, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in Italy.

New Times (Made in Slovenia)
TORTONA ROCKS @ Milano Design Week
OPIFICIO 31 - Officina 1 – Via Tortona 31
07.06. – 12.06. 2022 from 09.00 am - 09.00 pm