Thursday evening 20 September, on the occasion of the exhibition Dutch Design Port at TENT, a number of speakers sketch their personal perspectives on this matter. Dutch Design? Cosmo Design! is presented by Annemartine van Kesteren, curator Museum Boijmans van Beuningen.
Dutch Design? Cosmo Design! speakers:
Natasa Heydra
In the spring of 2007, Natasa Heydra presented the project Moslima Fashion in Showroom Mama; a magazine (MSLM), and an exhibition. She introduced the young Muslim woman as a hip trendsetter and fashionista. With designer burkas, trendy head veils and other garments by designers including Mada van Gaans, Corné Gabriels and Iniy Sanchez, this project does away with the cliché of the conservatively dressed young Muslim woman.
Tarek Atrissi
Tarek Atrissi developed the el Hema logo for the exhibition of the same title in Mediamatic Amsterdam. Atrissi has a multidisciplinary design company: Tarek Atrissi Design, but has become a specialist in contemporary Arabic typefaces and is much in demand as a speaker on Arabic typography. Atrissi is a prominent designer with international clients – he designed the visual identity of Qatar among other things – but he is based in Hilversum.
Memar.Dut@h
The young architects of Memar.Dut@h, Ergün Erkoçu and Abdeluahab Hammiche Ergün graduated cum laude in 2003 with a design for a ‘polder mosque’ as an alternative to the Essalam mosque in the Rotterdam district of Feijenoord. Their proposed mosque has no minaret or dome, but is half covered by a grassy slope and thus seamlessly absorbed into an adjacent park. Erkoçu: ‘I believe that there should always be a relationship between the mosque and its surroundings.’ According to Erkoçu, there is only one way to do this: by creating a Dutch mosque style through the merging of different cultures. Fusion. The architectural firm has been named Intendant for Cultural Diversity for two years by the Fonds voor Beeldende Kunsten, Vormgeving en Bouwkunst.
Imre Bergmann
Imre Bergmann graduated from the Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam in 2007 with Wereldservies. This porcelain china subtly combines specific forms, ornamentation and patterns from different cultures into a new totality. This intervention goes beyond a simple aesthetic solution. Bergmann states: ‘I was looking for a way to bring together different cultures in a relaxed manner. I believe this is possible by means of food. Food is (essential) for everyone; it reconciles people and is a social affair in most cultures.’
Jacques Koeweiden
As creative director of Koeweiden Postma, Jacques Koeweiden is closely involved in cross-cultural design and integration. His bureau designed a new visual language for Kosmopolis/Marhaba Amsterdam: Islamic decorative elements in combination with contemporary Western design. Koeweiden was one of the guests at ‘Khatt, kufi & kaffya,’ a symposium on Arabic visual culture, held August 24 in Amsterdam. Koeweiden Postma has received many nominations and design prizes and has exhibited at the MoMA (New York) and the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam) among others.
Koehorst in ‘t Veld
Jannetje in ‘t Veld en Toon Koehorst jointly form the Rotterdam based graphic design bureau Koehorst in ’t Veld. In both autonomous projects and on commission (incl. for Frame Magazine), their accent is on cross-media work. They recently travelled to Beijing as ‘artists in residence’ and spoke with numerous designers, architects and artists about how China and the Netherlands influence one another. Fragments of these meetings can be found at www.entity-identity.com.