JUST A THING

This is another edition of the exhibition JUST a THING – after presentations at international design events in Berlin, Paris, Vienna, and St. Petersburg, the works of Polish designers will be showcased at the Design Night festival in Tallinn, Estonia this September. The Estonian audience will see 10 specially designed works created for this exhibition by 10 young Polish designers and design groups: Aze design, Betonu, Paweł Grobelny, Krystian Kwieciński, Lapolki, Malafora, Bartosz Mucha, Piotr Stolarski, Arek Wolski, and Łukasz Wysoczyński. The curator of the exhibition is Agnieszka Jacobson Cielecka, an expert in Polish and global design and applied arts, and the author of many design exhibitions.

The theme of the exhibition JUST A THING is the ordinary object, seemingly dull and unattractive. However, such a seemingly trivial topic has unleashed immense creativity, inspiring designers to come up with extraordinary solutions. The curator set the designers the task of designing any object that fits into a plywood box with standard dimensions of 75x75x75 cm. Thus, the only design limitation was the size of the box. “I invited 10 designers to participate in the project. They received the conditions that the object had to meet and funding from the Adam Mickiewicz Institute to create a prototype. They were also given the theme and the dimensions of the box in which the prototype had to fit. Such a limitation arose from practical considerations – 10 objects packed in uniform boxes create a collection that is easy to transport and display. With the theme of ‘ordinary thing,’ each designer had to manage on their own,” explains Agnieszka Jacobson Cielecka. “What does ‘ordinary thing’ mean? Each designer strives to create something surprising, unique, something that defies definitions – ‘extraordinary.’ Can an ordinary thing be extraordinary? It turns out it can, although in their boxes, designers mostly enclosed ordinary objects: seats (Wolski, Malafor), tables (Wysoczyński and Grobelny), lamps (Kwieciński and Stolarski), vessels (Lapolka). However, Malafor’s inflatable chair contradicts all habits concerning seating furniture: immaterial and non-constructive, it still serves its purpose. Wolski’s stool is a provocation; borrowing the form from the human body, albeit indirectly, places us in an awkward situation. Besides the mundane purpose of the furniture, Wysoczyński addresses another need: storage – not only of objects in drawers but also of flawed, damaged, and incomplete items burdened with memories. Lapolka, Aze design, and Beton respond emotionally to the given theme. Lapolka’s inflatable glasses, meant more for fun than drinking, become a play on words: the literal meaning of ‘blowing’ and the customary ‘glass.’ By proposing to reflect on portraits from the past, Aze design acknowledges the need to imagine oneself in other roles and times. Beton draws attention, surprises, evokes smiles, and provokes. What is an ‘ordinary thing’ in Beton’s project? Some authors of the exhibited works are mature creators known in Europe, such as Malafor, Aze Design, Beton, or Paweł Grobelny, while others, like Krystian Kwieciński and Łukasz Wysoczyński, are just at the beginning of their paths. All are talented designers whose works amaze with imagination, passion, and humor, provoking thought about the role of design in our lives and proving that surprising answers can emerge from simple questions. The projects presented at the JUST A THING exhibition comment on the recently published publication by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw titled “Out of the Ordinary. Polish Designers of the 20th Century,” edited by Prof. Czesława Frejlich, concerning Polish design of the 20th century. The book and the exhibition are thus an invitation to reflect and discuss ‘ordinary and extraordinary’ things, an attempt to find a definition of ‘ordinariness’ in design and to determine whether an object is merely a thing or something more.

Exhibition JUST A THING
September 20-23, 2012, Design Night Festival, Tallinn, Estonia (www.desainioo.ee). The exhibition is open to visitors from Monday to Saturday from 12:00 to 20:00, and on Sunday from 12:00 to 18:00.

The JUST A THING exhibition was organized by the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Tallinn (www.tallinn.polemb.net), the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw (www.iam.pl and www.culture.pl), and the Regional Museum in Stalowa Wola (www.muzeum.stalowawola.pl).

CURATOR OF THE EXHIBITION AGNIESZKA JACOBSON-CIELECKA – curator of many exhibitions and a journalist, an expert and promoter of contemporary design in Poland and around the world. Since 2008, she has been the artistic director and curator of exhibitions at the Łódź Design festival (www.lodzdesign.com), and since 2011, a lecturer at the School of Form in Poznań (www.sof.edu.pl). She collaborates with many cultural institutions in Poland and abroad, organizing exhibitions of Polish and international design, including “UNPOLISHED – YOUNG DESIGN FROM POLAND” with Paweł Grobelny (2009), “NATURALNE ZASOBY POLSKIEGO DESIGNU” (2009), “POLSKA FOLK” (2010), “MATERIA PRIMA” (2010), “DZIECINADA” (2010), and “JUST A THING” (2011). She is also involved in promoting design and designers. From 2000 to 2007, she was the editor-in-chief of the Polish edition of Elle Decoration. She is a graduate of the painting department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk.