Location: First Floor, Collection Exhibition Utopia Now: Changing Room
NÆS – Nomad Agency/Archive of Emergent Studies*
3.2.–28.05.2017
What hides behind the curves of Finnish design mythologies?
How was the aura of Finnish design created and maintained?
What gets blurred in this horizon?
A research in process in the Changing Room
The exhibition revolves around the archival documentation and traces left by Finland’s participation in the Milan Triennials. The focus is on what happened behind the scenes, in the intersections between design, national discourses and their mediatic construction. It inquires how the heroic myths of Finnish design were calculated, promoted and legitimized by means of international displays.
Using a forum concept, including interviews, panel discussions and lectures, NÆS seeks to challenge these footprints in the contemporary narratives and dominant historical legitimacies. By drifting away from paths that are taken for granted, they aim to shake the mythological sediments of commodified heroes, speculators and viewers, and open them for debate.
The exhibition is a temporary artistic intervention and a collective forum for a period of four months taking place in the Design Museum’s permanent collection exhibition. We invite the museum visitors to engage in the public program related to this research.
Exhibition and research team: David Muoz, Elina Juopperi, Fahrettin Ersin Alaca and Giovanna Esposito Yussif
Advisors: Katarina Siltavuori, Auli Suortti-Vuorio and Leena Svinhufvud
Acknowledgments: Aalto University, Design Forum
This project has received funding from the Kone Foundation.
*NÆS – Nomad Agency/Archive of Emergent Studies is a collective-connective research agency and a cultural production studio focusing on emergent and resilient dynamics of social organisation. It functions as a platform for activating alternative forms of knowledge production and critical thinking.
Image: Telegram from Gio Ponti to Gummerus, 29.12.1950. Courtesy of Suomen Taideteollisuusyhdistys Arkisto.
