TILBURG.- Since 31 October, the exhibition Hella Jongerius – Smart hands has been on view at TextielMuseum in Tilburg. An enormous cross-shapedcabinet forms the central spatial gesture of the exhibition and cuts through the exhibition space. With its bold colours, large volumes and passageways, the design divides the space into different thematic worlds and draws visitors directly into Jongerius’ design practice. Among dozens of partially opened archive boxes, material experiments and realised works, visitors discover how she thinks, experiments and ultimately arrives at a design. In this way, Smart hands reveals what normally remains hidden behind the work of one of the Netherlands’ most influential designers.

The exhibition is centred around Hella Jongerius’ generous donation of her textile design archive to TextielMuseum. The textile archive comprises more than 4,000 sketches, models and material samples, collected over the course of her career spanning more than thirty years. In Smart hands, a selection from this extensive archive is shown in relation to the remarkable objects that emerged from this research: interior fabrics, furniture, textile objects and installations characterised by a rich sense of colour, materiality and texture.

Inside Hella Jongerius’ design mind

Throughout the exhibition, numerous archive boxes are opened up: visitors encounter sketches, textile samples and prototypes at close range and, in a sense, step inside Hella Jongerius’ design mind. They see the choices she makes throughout her design process, from commissions for industry to autonomous work. On display are, among other things, fabrics developed for Maharam alongside the corresponding weaving samples, textile samples for KLM’s World Business Class interiors, preliminary studies for textile installations and experiments with colour and three-dimensional weaving. The combination of research material and realised work reveals how ideas, materials and techniques are connected across different periods of Jongerius’ practice.

Visual seduction

The spatial exhibition design by Studio Harm Rensink and Brigitte Coremans provides a stage for Jongerius’ design process and textile projects, full of colour and spatial surprises. Work from different periods is connected through four themes: the dynamic archive, colour, craft and industry, and three-dimensional textiles.

Filmmaker and photographer Roel van Tour brings the textile archive, Jongerius’ way of working and the work of a new generation of designers to life in three poetic films. Together, the films form a visual exploration of Jongerius’ design practice: how she works, both independently and in collaboration with many others.

From early prototype to recent textile work

One of Jongerius’ earliest textile works is the Knitted Lamp from 1995, which she developed for Droog Design in collaboration with the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology. The design process behind Animal Portraits (2009) is also featured in the exhibition. This socially engaged project by IKEA and UNICEF supported Indian women in earning a livelihood.

More recent works, including the Space Amulets and works from the Woven Windows series, both from 2021, marked the starting point for Jongerius’ research into three-dimensional textiles.

The works are among the objects from Jongerius’ textile oeuvre that TextielMuseum acquired two years ago with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt, in part thanks to its Titus Fund.

International context

The focus on Jongerius’ textile work also sets Smart hands apart within the international attention her oeuvre is receiving this year. Since 23 October, Hella Jongerius: Whispering Things, previously presented at Vitra Design Museum earlier this year, has been on view at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg. While this retrospective presents the full breadth of Jongerius’ oeuvre – from furniture to ceramics – Smart hands in Tilburg focuses entirely on textiles and her working archive, with its many interconnections. The two exhibitions therefore complement one another: Hamburg presents the breadth of Jongerius’ design oeuvre, while Tilburg zooms in on how her textile work comes into being and the central role textiles play within her practice.

An archive that is very much alive

With its transfer to TextielMuseum, the textile archive takes on a new role. Whereas Jongerius herself drew on it for many years as a source for new research and designs, it can now also be studied from other perspectives. For Jongerius, the transfer does not mean that the archive becomes a closed chapter.

“Often, an archive belongs to someone who is no longer with us. I am very much alive.” – Hella Jongerius

This idea runs as a thread throughout Smart hands. The archive invites us to look back, while at the same time creating space for new interpretations, research and ideas. Jongerius herself describes the transfer to a museum as a way of putting the archive into an ‘active mode’, allowing others to study it and enabling it to continue to evolve.

A new generation of designers

The way knowledge and ideas continue to inform a new generation of designers is also visible in a separate gallery. It presents work by three studios whose designers were part of the Jongeriuslab design team at different moments: Meyers + Fügmann, Adrianus Kundert and Jos Klarenbeek. All share a particular interest in weaving and combine material research, craft and technology, each from their own design practice.

Meyers + Fügmann investigate colour through the material itself. In their ongoing research project Slow Patterns, they study how natural dyes gradually fade under the influence of sunlight and how that process can become part of the design.

Adrianus Kundert explores, among other things, basket weaving, a technique closely related to weaving. In 2020, he founded Basketclub, an international platform through which makers reinterpret the craft from different cultural perspectives.

Jos Klarenbeek approaches weaving through mathematics and science and investigates, among other things, how different weave structures can result in three-dimensional forms.

Their joint presentation shows how their experience at Jongeriuslab continues to inform three distinct design practices.

The archive remains accessible

Part of Jongerius’ textile archive will also remain accessible beyond the exhibition. In TextielMuseum’s library, visitors can explore the archive during a weekly show & tell, while researchers can consult material by appointment through the Depot on Demand. This pilot anticipates plans for a larger Depot on Demand following the museum’s future renovation.