Taste
5x Design with a Message
Designs that say more than they show: five art projects about identity, consumption, and today's digital beauty standards.
We scroll, swipe, and select—and sometimes forget to consider what that says about us. In this selection of (design)signs of the times, artists and designers look not only forward but also inward. They pose questions about beauty, identity, and the paradox of our consumer society.
Divine appearance
Why are we so easily manipulated by the beauty industry? How do facial filters and algorithms change body image? These questions inspired Pia Scheiber and Teresa Mahler to create Honestly, I think you look great: an immersive installation exploring how the digital aesthetics of the new beauty movement on TikTok, Instagram, and the like are shaping the body image of our digital future. The result is a cohesive collage of digital and analog beauty tools that not only embodies an aesthetic vision but also offers a critical reflection on the social and cultural constructions of beauty, identity, and the body.
Sculpture of the throwaway culture
In his work, Casper Braat is driven by his deep fascination for consumer society. For humanity, convenience comes before everything else, which manifests itself in a need for luxury and an obsession with the new. Casper's sculptures and installations, with an emphasis on craftsmanship and the use of materials such as marble and gold, glorify the everyday by placing the ordinary on a pedestal. His works are made to last forever and immortalize the abundance of the present for future generations. For his series Forever transforms disposable devices into enduring monuments. Each sculpture symbolizes our society’s paradoxical relationship with consumption – a celebration of the present at the expense of sustainability for the future. Casper is exhibiting at Art Rotterdam (March 27-30) and can be seen with a new solo show at Torch Gallery Amsterdam before that.
Dream world
The designs of Utopia Blu, consisting of Tiia Vahula & Philip H. Wilck, weave a narrative that explores emotions and experiences. They transcend functionality and create space for beauty and innovation. With their project Facing Hyacinth they attempt to fathom the mysteries of existence by combining nature and technology, with sustainability and aesthetic innovation as central themes.
Plural of individual
The project In-Individual Studio JibyJim, a craft design studio in Eindhoven run by Seoul-born artist Seung Hwan Ji, sees the individual not as an indivisible entity, but as an expression of multiple identities. Not individual, but 'dividual.' By reinterpreting identity through a material like wood, reflections on identity are translated into design. The wood represents fragmented identities, which are reassembled into diverse self-portraits. Each portrait is not merely a persona, but an expression of identity in which opposing elements such as reason and emotion, softness and roughness, converge.
Intertwined worlds
In Jeroen van den Bogaert's tapestries, old and new worlds collide in a surprising way. He dissects and blends images from art history with contemporary newspaper and news photos. In this way, mythology, history, and current social issues blend harmoniously. In the tapestry Metamorphoses Van den Bogaert explores the myth of Icarus and Daedalus that Ovid in his metamorphoses He described it. He combines traditional depictions of this myth with contemporary photographs of military paratroopers. All the figures, descending from the heavens, are confronted with the fragility of their existence. Van den Bogaert updates a classic medium using computer-controlled weaving machines from the TextielMuseum in Tilburg.
