The Design Museum is announcing its third Design Club Open Call to seek new content for the Gallery space. This year the museum is looking for exhibition entries that deal with material and materiality. The proposal can be an exhibition, installation or intervention, and may consist of one or more works. The exhibition selected through the international Open Call will be opened to the public as part of the programme of Helsinki Design Week in September 2020
The exhibition concept chosen through the application process will be granted the use of the exhibition space, and production funding to the amount of €10,000. The call is open to Finnish and international designers, design teams and companies. The application period closes on the 11th of January 2020.
This year’s theme is material and materiality. Working with and controlling different materials is key part of design. The development of new materials and studying the limits and potential of existing materials have become permanent aspects of design.
Society is becoming more and more digital and this transformation is shaking up traditional product design and increasing the significance of immaterial design. At the same time, the global relationship with material has reached a critical juncture as a result of overproduction and overconsumption. Design Museum´s Open Call attempts to challenge our thoughts about materials and materiality in design: What role does material play in a digital society, or in the midst of an environmental crisis? What kind of new perspective does the circular economy, for example, provide?
Materials have potential as both a designer’s tool and a generator of social change. The Open Call prompts people to consider whether a material – in the hands of a designer – can be an enabler of political change, or how materials can affect consumers’ thinking. And is it possible to form platforms around materials that could enable the creation of new information?
The Open Call is organized in association with Design Club, which is Design Museum’s business network. The members of Design Club are companies that seek to develop their business with the aid of design.
Application
The application must be based on the concept of material or materiality and the proposed exhibition, installation or intervention, and the entry must be linked to design, employing its forms of expression, materials, working methods or discourse. The material or materials can be decided by the applicant or applicants. The application can also include a proposal of a partner for the materials.
Applications period
29 November–11 January 2020
Exhibition schedule:
4 September–25 October 2020
The entry shall consist of the following
Project description (max. A4)
Image attachments, sketches or moodboards (max. 5)
Budget for the project (max. A4)
Project schedule (max. A4)
The applications shall be submitted no later than 23:59 (11:59 p.m.) (EET) on the 11th of January 2020 in pdf format to the address opencall@designmuseum.fi
Design Club and Design Museum will select the exhibition by 17 January 2020 and the successful applicant will be notified in person.
The Gallery is on the basement level of Design Museum Helsinki and has a floor area of 231 square metres.
The floor plan of the space is available in pdf, 3dm and dwg formats:
Gallery Booklet (pdf)
Gallery Booklet (dwg)
Gallery Booklet (3dm)
Gallery Plan (pdf of CAD view)
Read more: Most asked questions
For more information, please contact:
Chief Curator Suvi Saloniemi, Design Museum, suvi.saloniemi@designmuseum.fi
Picture: Paavo Lehtonen / Material experiments in the Enter & Encounter exhibition at the Design Museum 2017
