Exhibition of Design of Home Living Culture from Germany
10 February — 02 March 2010
J.D.A Perera Gallery
Faculty of Visual Art
University of the Visual & Performing Arts
46, Horton Place
Colombo-7

The Goethe-Institut Colombo (German Cultural Centre) in collaboration with the University of the Visual and Performing Arts, the Academy of Design and the Moratuwa University are proud to present a major Design Exhibition "conscious, simple- consciously simple.

The Emergence of an Alternative Product Culture" a Design Exhibition in Colombo.

The biggest exhibition of Design ever to be held in Sri Lanka, this German exhibition has been traveling in 29 cities all over the world.

The newly opened Gallery of the University of Visual and Performing Arts will host a selection of 65 objects and a total of 122 exhibits by 35 German designers and designer groups which focuses on pieces of furniture, luminaries and home accessories. This New German Design reveals the various trends and strategies with their different emphases on the aspect of the conscious and the simple.

Along with the selection of German Design products the organizers and exhibition partners plan to jointly exhibit a selection of Sri Lankan objects of contemporary and indigenous design, made by young designers and students of design.

This exhibition from Germany has already attracted more than 300.000 visitors and will be in Colombo for the first time! This is a unique opportunity for all those interested in Design as well as the public to view inspiring cutting edge design options for enhancing our environment

Along with the selection of German Design products the organizers and exhibition partners plan to jointly exhibit a selection of Sri Lankan objects of contemporary and indigenous design, made by young designers and students of design.

In this three storied state-of–the-art Gallery you can experience the different strands of fundamentally different design approaches which have impacted on furniture and object design. Their common subject has been the piece of furniture that is conceived, produced and handled in a consciously simple way. In this exhibition furniture is not only shown as a functional product but becomes a topic of aesthetic thought and design.

The objects chosen do not stand out for their luxurious materials or complicated and costly production processes, but for their robust materiality, plain configuration, simple and practical handling as well as comparatively low prices, not withstanding some humor.

The demand for simplicity of materials and production processes also leads into a new design consideration, i.e. ecological quality which, however, is not the primary aim for selection. Rather, designers try to create designs that also convey sensory pleasure.

In this exhibition design trends follow the traditions of typical home-living culture, with some objects referring to the functional furniture of Modernism, e.g. of the Bauhaus. Yet from the start, the New German Design has extended the notion of functionality to include narrative and emotional moments, the principles of 'objets trouvés' as well as the recycling of materials and set pieces as essential design factors.

The exhibition catalogue is a work of Art in itself. It won the promotion prize for 'The most beautiful German books 1998' held by the Stiftung Buchkunst (German Book Art Foundation). The designers also won a distinction for the exhibition poster design.