Rooted Design for Routed Living. Alternative Design Strategies

The Nordic Artists' Centre in Norway (NKD) and the A-I-R Laboratory at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw have initiated the project, and will host the events. Both institutions are working with artist-in-residency programs, but in very different conditions-the NKD is situated in a rural area on the west coast of Norway, while the A-I-R Laboratory at the Ujazdowski Castle is located in a European metropolis.

Many contemporary artists spend a lot of time travelling between exhibitions and commissions of different kind. During the last decade, it has become common to travel from residency to residency. The life of these artists can be considered rootless, in a way, and frequently, the same can be said of the places of their stay, in terms of the design of interior: it is often characterized as being too pragmatic. The similarities in the programs of the centres and the differences in several other dimensions created a space for a common interest in establishing an exchange. The idea was that each centre should use the other as a resource to gain new knowledge about the possibilities or impossibilities of making the interiors more relevant in relation to local circumstances. Since both institutions have programs on the borderland of art/design, and architecture where space related works play an important role, it was necessary to focus on our own facilities. Hopefully, the project can help improve the living and working conditions for visiting artists. Rooted Design for Routed Living is formulated as a project where groups of Norwegian and Polish designers go to work on foreign ground.

The aim of the project is to present prototype furniture, designed specifically for the spaces of each centre. The furniture will , hopefully, offer a design with a clear relation to local history, aesthetics and heritage. Nowadays, design has become a very vague concept with perhaps too much impact, and it seems important to try to turn it around. As we see it, this means more focus on concepts, to avoid the pitfalls of labouring expressions of contemporary design as pure appearance. Concepts that last over time usually have a relation to some kind of specificity, such as something local or personal. This is the impulse that leads to the idea of working with customization. Rooted Design for Routed Living is a project that has its point of departure in contextual purpose.

The project will be completed at the end of 2010, and will be presented through exhibitions organized at the CCA Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw and at NKD in Dale. All the research materials, texts, images and documentation of the work with the prototypes will be presented in a book that will conclude the project.

Supported by a grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian Financial Mechanism

Organization: artists-in-residence laboratory at CCA Ujazdowski Castle and Nordic Artists' Centre Dalsåsen.

www.design-in-residence.org

Project group leaders:

Tomek Rygalik and Oscar Narud

Project group:

Øystein Austad

Maja Ganszyniec

Amy Hunting

Pawel Jasiewicz

Ola Mirecka

Trond Nicholas Perry

Jonas Ravlo Stokke

Jakub Szczesny

08-23 Januar 2010, NKD, Norway

Residency of the project group in Norway

photos Kjetil Kausland

20-29 November 2009, NKD, Norway

Residency of the project group in Norway

01-15 July 2009, NKD, Norway

Research residency of the project group in Norway

20-22 March 2009. Warsaw, Poland

Workshops and talks at CCA

photos from Warsaw Wojciech Olkusnik/Agencja Gazeta

nkd nordisk kunstnarsenter dalsåsen 6963 dale i sunnfjord norway