Dutch design in San Francisco
EINDHOVEN, May 1, 2015 - Nearly twenty Dutch Designers will be represented from 9 May until 13 September 2015 at the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco in an exhibition of their work, titled Hands Off: New Dutch Design at the Confluence of Technology & Craft. The show will travel to Eindhoven and will reopen there during Dutch Design Week’s 14th Edition, from 17 October until 25 October.
In conjunction with the opening in San Francisco, Dutch Design Week is organizing a special business program that includes visits to technology studios in the city.
Four themes
Hands Off: New Dutch Design at the Confluence of Technology & Craft presents a wide spectrum of Dutch design, art and craft combined with cutting edge technology, including digital technology. The themes, developed during the last two years by the museum’s guest curator Zahid Sardar, frequently in collaboration with Dutch Design Week, include TechnoCraft, BioCraft, NaturoPaths and Hands Off. The last refers largely to the way new craft, thanks to recent technologies, is manufactured. As an institution, which actively explores the role of craft and design in everyday life, the Museum of Crafts and Design organized and produced this exhibition. “The selected designers have produced experimental work that will have broad implications on the future of art, crafts and design on a global scale, and that includes the realms of architecture, e-culture and fashion,” Sardar said.
Dutch participants
Many of the designers including Borre Akkersdijk (winner of the Young Designer Award 2013), inventor and designer Dirk Vander Kooij, Studio Drift, Eric Klarenbeek, Jólan Van der Wiel and jewelry designer Ted Noten have participated in Dutch Design Week in recent years. Fashion designer Anouk Wipprecht, who was an artist-in-residence at Autodesk, San Francisco, will present her new 3D-printed Spider Dress produced in cooperation with Intel in Portland. More information about the exhibition, the designers and their work can be found on the Museum of Craft and Design website www.sfmcd.org.
Opening and business program
On Thursday, 7 May, Dutch Design Week has planned a special business program to stimulate collaborative dialogues between Dutch designers, the companies they will visit including Autodesk, 3D Systems and Nikolas Weinstein Studios, and designer Marcel Wanders, who will host an evening event at DZINE store in San Francisco.
On Friday, 8 May, the San Francisco Dutch Consul General Hugo von Meijenfeldt will address guests at the first members’ reception.
On Saturday, 9 May, guest curator Zahid Sardar will lead a panel discussion about Dutch design with Dutch Design Week director Martijn Paulen, designer Marcel Wanders and others included in the exhibition.
Later in the year, an expanded form of the Hands Off exhibition will open to the public during the 14th Edition of Dutch Design Week, from 17 until 25 October 2015 in Eindhoven, in the Netherlands. New ideas and creations, generated by designers after their experiences in San Francisco during Hands Off, will also be exhibited. For more information please visit www.ddw.nl.
‘Hands Off: New Dutch Design at the Confluence of Technology & Craft’ has been made possible through cooperation between the Museum of Craft and Design, Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie, Lloyd Hotel Amsterdam, the Royal Netherlands consulates in New York and San Francisco, and Dutch Design Week.
