Appropriate Design!

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A group exhibition with Dominique Perrault,
2x4, Instant Architects and François Azambourg
curated by Ilka & Andreas Ruby as part of
The Design Annual 2007
Messe Frankfurt 14-17.06.2007

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Taking up the topic “identity” from The Design Annual 2007 the exhibition “Appropriate Design!” asks about the identity of design. How does design become what it is? And how does it produce its identity?

If you understand identity as that aspect that makes a thing or person special and distinguishes it from others identity is not a static property but a process. After all we do not only derive identity from ourselves but produce it in exchange with our changing environment.
We inform our Self by appropriating the Other. This production of identity through appropriation is one of the crucial topics of the contemporary design debate.
Against this background different artistic categories such as design, architecture, graphics, film, art or music not longer appear as highly distinct disciplines that would be solely defined by their own rules. Rather, they exert a mutual influence on each other and appropriate techniques, materials and production methods from different areas in order to develop beyond the established definition of themselves. Accordingly, design has become a nomadic practice, which can make itself at home in a wide range of territories.

In “Appropriate Design!” curators Ilka & Andreas Ruby present the cross-over logic of contemporary design with four different professional focal points. Each of the four exhibition participants created a specific spatial installation, which communicates its respective methods of creative appropriation sensually. The exhibition is complemented by a program featuring lectures and discussions in which the four exhibition participants.

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