An exhibition showcasing Danish craft and design at Fresh Paint Contemporary Art Fair
In April 2017, Visual Story exhibited four Danish outdoor kitchen designs at Fresh Paint 9. The exhibition was called Play & Food – embracing quality of life and was based on the idea of the sharing kitchen.
At Fresh Paint 10 we stay focused on Play & Food and the fact that food brings people together. But this time we move from the kitchen to the table which is set for a Danish birthday party.
A reflection of the Danish Society
In Denmark we care a great deal about “hygge” (coziness) and as we spend a lot of time in our homes we care about the products that surround us – A beautiful table setting is as important as the food and we have a strong and long tradition for setting tables and collecting tableware. We tend to combine functionality with aesthetics that reflects the climate and landscape that surround us.
“The table represents the space where we gather for our meals. It is the space where conversation, intimacy and gastronomic enjoyment meets.” – Shop for Table Setting, CPH”.
Cool and Nordic
The objects in Play & Food #2 are made of different materials such as glass, porcelain, concrete textile and wood and the variation of designs illustrates the aesthetics of todays’ Danish handcraft and design – the choice of material, the handling and the functionality. The red spots on the tablerunner and the red lines on the napkins is the symbol of the Danish flags, which are an essential part of the teablesetting and the cakes – The birthday table is also a ’no-go’ without the candles – in the exhibition you see them in different red colours on the table.
Facts
Designers
Kirstine Kejser Jenbo (DK), Pia Baastrup (DK), Tora Urup (DK), Anne Fabricius Møller (DK), Kathrine Kjeldsen (DK) Hansen, Ane-Katrine von Bülow (DK), Metha Stuart Wallace (DK), Akiko Kuwahata (DK), Anne Tophøj (DK), Louise Campbell (DK).
Curator and project manager
Lotte Ladegaard Zeuthen/Visual Story
Idea and concept
Nina Tolstrup, Lotte Ladegaard Zeuthen and The Shop for Table Settings in cooperation with Fresh Paint and The Danish Embassy in Tel Aviv.
Supported by The Embassy of Denmark The Embassy of Norway, Nationalbankens Jubilæumsfond and Georg Jensen
Please visit Visual Story on Facebook for more info and news:
The thoughts behind Play & Food #2
“After the ‘golden age’ in Danish design in the fifties and sixties with household names like Hans Wenger, Finn Juhl, Paul Kjærholm, Poul Henningsen, Arne Jacobsen etc. the following generation of designers were very much overshadowed by these giant’s work. But we are now well into a decade with a very strong revival of the Danish design scene. A combination of an embedded tradition for craftsmanship, with insights and profoundunderstanding of materials properties and free artistic thinking creates a balance that is special to Danish craft and design and give us a perspective of both recognition and surprise.” Curator and designer Nina Tolstrup
Play & Food
The creative process of designing involves the forming of all areas of life. The character of design shapes our cultures and goes hand in hand with a very fundamental question of quality of life. That leads to questions of quality, economy, ecology and sustainability.
Danish Design has a long and strong history and we have in resent time seen a new vibrant and refreshing design scene emerging in Denmark and some of the strong new influences are very much embedded in embracing quality of life – which we here have condensed under the heading as play & food.
Provenance
In our globalized age, a new set of values is emerging that prizes the local and the hand-crafted over the homogenous and the manufactured. The worlds of food and design are both independently being massively influenced by rising demands for more ethically sourced products that are both environmentally and socially sustainable. The notion of provenance – where something comes from – has become highly important in this new value system, with people expecting transparency and honesty about the origin of goods and ingredients.
The table
The fact that food brings people together has been seized upon by designers, who are keen to take their discipline away from the materialistic, status-driven obsessions of the recent past. Sharing food is a democratic statement in which communal pleasure is more important than any individual contribution and dining has become an ideal vehicle for expressing design’s new humanistic attitude.
Comment