Just a thing

This is another edition of the exhibition JUST a THING – following its presentation at international design events in Berlin, Paris, Vienna, and St. Petersburg, the projects of Polish designers will be showcased at the Lviv Historical Museum in Lviv, Ukraine, in October and November of this year. The Ukrainian audience will see 10 specially designed works for this exhibition by 10 young Polish designers and project groups: Aze design, Betonu, Paweł Grobelny, Krystian Kwieciński, Lapolka, Malafora, Bartosz Mucha, Piotr Stolarski, Arek Wolski, and Łukasz Wysoczyński. The curator of the exhibition is Agnieszka Jacobson Cielecka, an expert on Polish and global design and applied arts, and the author of many design exhibitions.

The theme of the exhibition JUST A THING is an ordinary object, seemingly dull and unattractive. However, this seemingly trivial topic has unleashed enormous creativity, inspiring designers to extraordinary solutions. The curator set the task for designers to create any object that fits into a plywood box of standard dimensions 75x75x75 cm. Therefore, 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 for the creation of the prototype. They were also given the theme and the dimensions of the box in which the prototype was to fit. This limitation arose from practical considerations – 10 objects packed in unified boxes create a collection that is easy to transport and exhibit. With the slogan ‘ordinary thing,’ each designer had to manage on their own,” explains Agnieszka Jacobson Cielecka. “What does ‘ordinary thing’ mean? Every designer strives to create something surprising, unique, defying definitions – ‘extraordinary.’ Can an ordinary thing be extraordinary? It turns out that yes, even though most designers enclosed ordinary objects in their boxes: seats (Wolski, Malafor), tables (Wysoczyński and Grobelny), lamps (Kwieciński and Stolarski), vessels (Lapolka).

However, Malafora’s inflatable chair defies all habits regarding seating furniture: immaterial and non-structural, yet it fulfills its function. Wolski’s stool is a provocation, borrowing form from the human body, albeit not literally, placing us in an awkward situation. Besides the mundane purpose of the furniture, Wysoczyński addresses another need: storage – not just for objects in drawers, but also for flawed, damaged, and incomplete items burdened with memories.

Lapolka, Aze design, and Beton respond to the theme emotionally. At Lapolka, inflatable glasses, meant more for play than for drinking, become a play on words: the literal meaning of “blowing” and the customary “glass.” Aze design, proposing to reflect on portraits from the past, acknowledges the need to imagine oneself in other roles and times. Beton draws attention, surprises, evokes smiles, and provokes. What is the “ordinary thing” in Beton’s project?

Some of the authors of the works presented at the exhibition are mature, well-known creators 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 journey. All are talented designers whose works amaze with imagination, passion, and humor, provoking thought about the role of design in our lives, proving that we can find surprising answers to simple questions.

The projects presented at the exhibition JUST A THING comment on a recently published work by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw titled “Out of the Ordinary. Polish Designers of the 20th Century,” edited by Prof. Czesława Frejlich, about Polish design in the 20th century. The book and exhibition are thus an invitation for reflection and discussion about “ordinary and extraordinary” things, an attempt to seek a definition of “ordinariness” in design and to determine whether an object is just a thing or something more.

Exhibition JUST A THING
October 26 – November 26, 2012, Lviv Historical Museum, Rynek 2, Lviv, Ukraine. (www.xxx) The exhibition is open to visitors daily (except Wednesdays) from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

The exhibition JUST A THING has been organized by 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 journalist, expert and popularizer of contemporary design in Poland and worldwide. Since 2008, 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), “NATURAL RESOURCES OF POLISH DESIGN” (2009), “POLISH FOLK” (2010), “MATERIA PRIMA” (2010), “DZIECINADA” (2010), “JUST A THING” (2011). She also works on popularizing design and designers. From 2000 to 2007, she was the editor-in-chief of the Polish edition of Elle Decoration. She graduated from the painting department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk.

Additional information:
Joanna Łozińska, email: Joanna.lozinska@prinfo.pl; Tel: +48 660 41 41 02