The Art of Conversation
curated by BANK (Berlin) & INVENTORY (London)
June 12 – July 3, 2010
installation shots by Nikolai Wolff
The Art of Conversation: London—Berlin will showcase specially created original work from a selected group of 20 young and established designers and design studios and exhibit the results in both London and Berlin.
The participants, 10 London based design studios and 10 Berlin based design studios, will play a visual game of Chinese Whispers over the course of 90 days, each being involved in one stage of the chain.
Each participant is presented with a work/idea from the previous participant in the chain via a Skype chat. They then have 3 days to interpret it and forward their results to the next participant. Their response can take any form; from sculpture to performance, photograph to text. The resulting show will demonstrate that creativity is never predictable and infinitely varied.
Far from being a simple showcase of each individual’s work, this is a dynamic collaborative process in which creatives engage with and reinterpret concepts and designs organically generated by their fellow designers. The exhibitions will be an exemplification of the design process itself laying bare the ways in which ideas are realised visually through a multiplicity of techniques, materials and cultural influences.
As such the exhibition curators hope to demonstrate the different approaches and aesthetics of Berlin practitioners and their London based counterparts whilst facilitating a complex mash up of the two. Additionally to the created piece of artwork, each participating studio will produce a Limited Edition screen print in response to their involvement in the process. This will further allow the designers to showcase an uninhibited style and will act as a point of reference for the work they have produced during the The Art of Conversation: London—Berlin. These prints will be available for purchase both at the exhibitions and online.
"We hope the show is a journey allowing the viewer to follow the tangential ideas of the participants. Often exhibitions only show finished works, and the process of reaching them can be just as interesting. This show is unique in that the finished pieces are both the inspiration for the work and the work itself"
—The Curators
The Designers
From London: Alexandre Bettler, Anthony Burrill, APFEL, Dan Has Potential, Eat Sleep Work/Play, Hudson-Powell, Multistorey, Oscar & Ewan, Simon Elvins, Value and Service
From Berlin: 123buero, blotto, Heimann und Schwantes, Hort, Jung+Wenig, Kekiretta, Manuel Raeder, Node, Siggi Eggertsson, Slang
The Art of Conversation is a concept conceived & curated by BANK (Berlin) & INVENTORY (London). The exhibition in Berlin is curated in collaboration with PROGRAM. For more information please visit www.theartofconversation.org.
The exhibition is powered by Skype.