LONDON.- The Design Museum in London announces the four designers selected for the 2018 edition of Designers in Residence. Chosen by a distinguished panel, the designers will now take up residency in the museum’s in-house studio for the next seven months. Responding to the theme of ‘Dwelling’, they will explore and develop new work that presents thought-provoking ideas and challenges conventional boundaries in design.
Creating objects, experiences and interactions, the Designers in Residence scheme allows the designers to question the world around them. Through conversations and engagement with the public, they have the opportunity to develop experimental projects and share visionary ideas which are at the forefront of social, aesthetic, technological and environmental problem solving.
Their completed works will be collectively showcased for the public to visit between November 2018 and March 2019.
The annual programme provides a platform to promote new and emerging designers at an early stage in their career. The initiative has helped establish the careers of several celebrated designers, including Asif Khan, Giles Miller, Bethan Laura Wood, Yuri Suzuki and Sarah van Gameren.
The 2018 Designers in Residence are: Hester Buck, Ella Bulley, Dr Helga Schmid and Eva Jäger & Guillemette Legrand (Legrand Jäger)
Hester Buck is a member of the critical design practice, public works, a not-for-profit studio set up in 2004 to explore the intersection between architecture, art, performance and activism. Her projects address our relationship to landscape and nature within the urban public space. Her current research focuses on the celebration of green spaces within post-war social housing estates and its ability to actively engage the public in discussions about planning and the urban realm.
‘I will be exploring the valuable connection between the private home and public green space within a social housing estate. I will look at questioning the current rejection of post-war social housing as a political project, through a critique of its architectural typology.’
Ella Bulley is a London-based designer whose work frequently crosses textiles, product, art and set design. Her practice combines traditional artisan techniques with technological innovations to transform the 'raw' into the 'refined'. Crafting a range of objects that question our perception of materials, her work brings together ideas of social, economic and political trends.
Ella’s response to this year’s programme is Remnants, a project about the objects that inhabit a home. ‘Remnants aims to transform mundane encounters into tangible functional objects through material exploration.’
Eva Jäger and Guillemette Legrand met while studying at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. In 2016 they founded Legrand Jäger, a multi-media practice committed to researching design, ethics, andtechnology. Their films, publications, and lecture-performances generate metaphors for our new networked landscape. During their residency at the Design Museum, they will be exploring the invisible architectures of the smart home device.
Dr Helga Schmid is a London-based design researcher, experience and communication designer. Her interdisciplinary design practice and research sits within contemporary debates on the nature of temporality. She explores new roles, contexts and approaches in relation to the social, cultural and ethical impact of emerging technologies, with a focus on acceleration processes.
‘My project Uchronia (defined as temporal utopia), will be exploring the nature of temporality in relation to the future of dwelling. By investigating the topic of time through an interdisciplinary approach of design, chronobiology and chronosociology, I will suggest a new practical design initiative: chronodesign.’
The Designers in Residence programme provides young designers with time and space to research and consider new ways of progressing their work and practice. During the development of their projects, residents discuss their work with established practitioners, industry experts and residency alumni, as well as with the Design Museum's legal, commercial, learning, development, communications and curatorial teams. Each resident is offered a bursary, commissioning budget and the production costs required to realise their new commission. The programme offers opportunities for the designers to present and discuss their work within a broader context of contemporary practice, provoking their approach and design thinking to offer new and exciting directions within the fields of design.
