The exhibition ‘The Magic Touch: Designing Togetherness’, on show from 19 October 2024 at the Dutch Design Week, brings together projects by German Design Graduates on touch, inclusion and collaboration. In this interview, curators Nina Sieverding and Anton Rahlwes reveal how haptic experiences make design tangible in a new way.
Interview by Katharina de Silva
Your exhibition is about ‘togetherness’: How did you select the projects that reflect this idea from over 200 works?
Nina Sieverding: We’ve been working as jurors for a few years now and have been involved in various selection processes, so we’ve had practice. At some point you just have an internal catalogue of questions in your head: Is the work well researched? Is it well thought out? Is it up to date? How has it been done and documented? Does it fit the topic? You can tell pretty quickly whether a piece of work fits or not.
Anton Rahlwes: Ideally, the curatorial theme helps with the selection. In this case, projects that were interdisciplinary and had a haptic component had an easier time than others.
Nina Sieverding: Surprisingly, we also agreed quickly. There was very little work where we had to discuss or convince the others. And then, of course, we make sure that there is a certain balance: for example, that many different universities are involved and that as many subject areas as possible are covered. We just wanted to show different facets of ‘being together’.
What impressed you most about the graduates’ works? What did you notice in particular?
Anton Rahlwes: I think that the work of the German Design Graduates in particular always has a serious core and in most cases is treated with a lot of passion.
Nina Sieverding: What I find particularly interesting about the graduates is that you get a very good insight into the actual work of the graduates – from the research to the final product. In some cases we have the complete documentation, sometimes more than 100 pages of text. This provides an interesting cross-section of the German university landscape, with the different approaches and characteristics of the schools and graduates. We have noticed that some of the work returns to the domestic sphere – whether this is because many of the graduates studied during the pandemic, I can only speculate at this point.
Dutch Design Week expects well over 300,000 visitors in one week. How do you manage to attract attention with an exhibition?
Nina Sieverding: With a healthy mix of visuals, clarity and location. The location must be easily accessible and the exhibition must be able to explain itself quickly. I think we have achieved a good balance here.
Anton Rahlwes: I would say that we have a clear ‘competitive advantage’ with this year’s concept – at least that’s what I hope. We are not presenting the graduates’ work in a didactic way, but rather in an experiential way. And isn’t that what design should be about? Making everyday life tangible? So if you don’t just want to look at design, but want to experience it aesthetically in a different way, this exhibition is for you.
How did the exhibition design with Raw Colour come about?
Anton Rahlwes: II have been involved with design and inclusion for some time. One of the concepts that I find particularly enriching is ‘aesthetics of access’, which originally comes from theatre studies. In a nutshell, it’s about understanding inclusion not as an afterthought, but as a source of inspiration and ideas. I try to integrate this approach into all my work, which is not always easy. Working with Raw Colour was nice because we listened to each other and complemented each other. We wanted more than just ‘objects to look at’. This discourse in turn led to Raw Colour being inspired as well. The result is not at all what I originally expected – but in the best sense.
Nina Sieverding: We were lucky that Raw Colour was involved in the idea-finding process for the exhibition at a very early stage. When the curatorial concept was finalised, they presented us with three ideas that we all liked – so it was a win-win situation. In the end, we all decided together on the one that we felt was more appropriate and bolder.
Normally you’re not allowed to touch anything in an exhibition. But in yours it’s different: how did you manage the balancing act between “touchable” and “worth protecting”?
Nina Sieverding: This may sound banal: By communicating closely with everyone involved. Some of the exhibits are very fragile and early prototypes, so that’s not possible. But we are happy that the exhibitors trusted us in this respect.
Anton Rahlwes: The dogma that things should not be touched in exhibitions is only partly due to the protection of these objects. Before the Renaissance, there were relics that became more sacred and artistically valuable the more they were touched – the more they were ‘broken’, so to speak. It was only in the Renaissance that the sense of sight was recognised as the supreme sense of knowledge and other forms of knowledge were superseded. I see challenging such concepts, which often have an ableist core, as one of my most important tasks in such a powerful role as curator.
Collaboration is a key theme of the exhibition. Are there any exciting examples of how the designers have collaborated with other fields or industries?
Nina Sieverding: Yes, for example the work ‘Crotto Collection’, for which graduate Lara Landbrecht collaborated with Geberit. One of the core questions of the project was how to recycle ceramic waste.
Anton Rahlwes: I find the ‘Touching Stories’ project by Jana Katharina Lutat, for example, particularly complex. She uses different storytelling and research methods to convey the complexity of textiles, haptics and digitality. She has also worked with textile manufacturer Aquafil and the Smart Textiles Hub Dresden. I also find Virginia Reil’s ‘Layers of Value’ project, created in collaboration with Zimmer and Rohde, which explores new ways of using ‘deadstock’ textiles, exciting.
You describe the sense of touch as a force that can change things – especially in terms of sustainability. How do the projects in the exhibition convey this connection?
Anton Rahlwes: Touch is a direct sensory experience. We need to be in direct physical contact with our environment in order to have experiences or sensations of beauty. I believe that if we had these experiences more often and more intensely, many things would not remain so abstract. What we can touch is there. This is not so clear with images, especially in the age of AI. I believe that the sense of touch can help to make abstract issues – such as sustainability – more ‘tangible’ in the truest sense of the word. Of all the senses, I think it is the one that can help us humans become more empathetic – to ourselves, but also to our environment. In concrete terms, this means that it is much more fleeting to just look at an exhibition than it is to see, touch and perhaps even hear things. I would almost guarantee that multi-sensory experiences always lead to greater insight.
What do you want visitors to take away from the interactive and tactile experience of the exhibition?
Nina Sieverding: A new perspective on exhibitions, museums and museum concepts. And perhaps a new approach to design objects and concepts.
Anton Rahlwes: That objects in exhibitions can not only be looked at, and that design can also consider haptics and sound, maybe even taste. I also think it’s important to emphasise that what has been developed here is a form of inclusion. It is a false and ableist idea to assume that inclusion cannot be poetic, magical or much more than what we already think we know.
German Design Graduates
Exhibition Dutch Design Week 2024
The Magic Touch: Designing Togetherness
19.10.–27.10.2024, Eindhoven
About German Design Graduates
German Design Graduates (GDG), sponsored by the German Design Council Foundation, is the only nationwide initiative dedicated to promoting young graduates in product and industrial design and showcasing renowned German universities, art colleges and universities of applied sciences.
Auf Social Media Teilen
More on ndion
More interviews and articles on the subject of design and university.
