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ABOUT SYLVIA AVONTUUR
Sylvia Avontuur, entrepreneur. In 1995, I (Sylvia) discovered a gap in the Dutch market and founded the first press agency, PRESS ONLY, in the Netherlands specialized in fashion.
Because I don’t believe in pushing messages and do not want to create hypes, the consequence was that I got more involved on brand strategy level, starting at the beginning of the creative process in order to communicate engaging concepts and content that generates word-of-mouth publicity naturally. As a true design thinker, I believe in the integration of design in all aspects of the organisation to ensure innovation and creativity. The best way to differentiate, create brand value and stay alive! Design goes beyond the product itself and fashion trends. As an open minded person, I love to socialise in the real world by travelling and visiting network spots in different disciplines. I love to share my ‘real life rencontres’ on this blog and have conversations.
Milan Design Week 2012 – The honouring of craftsmanship and storytelling
The Milan furniture fair (Salone del Mobile) has grown enormously, it goes far beyond the sale of furniture, and even beyond the product. It’s more and more about the concept, the ideas behind. For me, the most inspiring part are the activities outside the fair called FuoriSalone, this means wandering from the city center to industrial ares like Zona Tortona and Ventura/Lambrate, giving an interesting mix of fresh and upcoming designers and established companies. There were a lot of collabs between traditional companies and designers to preserve craftsmanship and to brand nations. And this is inspiring me. It’s all about communication.
HANDMADE – WALLPAPER
For the third time Wallpaper organised a stylish exhibition under the name Handmade in a side street of Via Montenapoleone, in the Palazzo of the Italian suit company Brioni. In July you can buy Wallpaper’s August issue to check out these creative collaborations and their stories behind yourself.
SPAZIO ROSSANA ORLANDI – LI EDELKOORT CURATOR FOR RUBELLI
Another place I never miss is Spazio Rossana Orlandi. This venue – a former tie factory- has spaces around a green courtyard and is a pleasant place to have coffee and cake while you see the design world passing by. The aim of Rossana is to promote upcoming designers. The gallery and the design store are opened the whole year. During the Salone, the fabric manufacturer Rubelli, founded in 1858 in Venice, showed how the design world can integrate with the decorating world in an austere installation. One of the gallery’s spaces was transformed into a dark vision of romantic beauty, reflecting two important trends in design: the revival of textiles for interiors and a focus on black. As part of an ongoing collaboration, Lidewij Edelkoort was asked to select textiles and contemporary design, upholstering the space and previewing a revival of the gothic movement.
Edelkoort feels that black resonates in today’s world; “Becoming the order of the night, the guardian of dark humour and the romantic troubadour of cynical songs. Whether dozing upon a daybed, draped against a male torso or piously kneeling on a gothic chair, it is all more beautiful in black.The Rubelli family of brands is conscious of the newest societal trends exploring the darkly romantic and sometimes even surrealistic side of interior design. Design will embrace black and faux-black in every texture, for a black-on-black celebration of glorious gloom and doom, in an audacious and eccentric enactment of the night, where all is a majestic sombre monochrome of soft shadows lit by the full moon.” The design on display included a special edition of Maarten Baas’ Smoke! armchair produced by Moooi and dressed in Rubelli’s Les Indes Galantes fabric, a chandelier by Piet Hein Eek, re-upholstered modernist armchairs by Gio Ponti and Franco Albini, furniture by Donghia, and a mysterious new flock of birds by Guus Kusters & Maarten Kolk.
1616 ARITA AND SCHOLTEN & BAIJINGS
Also my favourite Dutch designerduo Scholten & Baijings had a presentation at Rosanne Orlandi’s place. They showed their collaboration with 1616 Arita, one of the oldest (1616) Japanese porcelain manufacturers. For the collection of 1616 Arita, Scholten & Baijings prepared a colour analysis involving historical masterpieces. Typical Japanese colours, such as aquarelle blue, light green, red-orange and yellow ochre, were the ones that played a prominent role. The results are layered colour compositions, executed in different shades of glass, in combination with the natural porcelain colour. The latter has a special delicate grey-white hue, which makes it unique in the world. By applying the compositions to an extremely functional service, a splendid dialogue has been created between applied art and everyday use. The combination of this traditional craftsmanship and Scholten & Baijings’ recognizable signature style has resulted in a unique mix of Asian and European culture.
JAPAN CREATIVE
That Japan has a long-cherised tradition of highly-skilled craftsmanship and has an enterprising spirit, was reaffirmed at the presentation Japan Creative. From old artisans to the latest technologies and international creativity. This exhibition themed Simple Vision, showed the ability of design as a manner of innovation, how it can give an economic bust to a country that has suffered and about the importance of roots and branding a nation. First of all, it was the beauty of the designs that attracted me, so it was great to discover the stories behind, the different layers. Because that’s where it is all about today in my speciality as communication consultant. Therefore I like to end this post with the following Simple Vision text:
The earthquake and tsunami in March 2011, made us realize one thing: true wealth in life does not lie in material affluence. Since the old days, the Japanese have valued the aesthetics of simplicity – that is, the beauty lies in what is simple, space-efficient, multifunctional, and multipurpose. Incorporating the wisdom of past generations, and in collaboration with designers worldwide, we have begun to express our vision and propose a new lifestyle. The theme of the exhibition, ‘Simple Vision’, represents a door to a future world, were we rethink and redefine the role of designs in our lives.
Creative hotspots Amsterdam – free lectures tips
The first lecture – in a series of six – of Spatial Experiences from BNI, about “redesignation” inspired me for writing this post. Evert Verhagen of Creative Cities spoke and showed a lot of examples about how important creativity is for the transformation of cities. Since 1994 he was project manager for the redevelopment of the Westergasfabriek. Through all kind of creative ideas he found investors for the Westergas area which was extremely polluted, and now has grown into an indispensable social place and incubator for cultural and creative Amsterdam. It has become a place for everyone.
The major changes these days are mostly effecting the cities. In the new economy, cities are the most important factors in growth and development. Creative economy calls for talent, development and connecting networks, meeting places, and giving aware wide space for creativity. This contributes to the charm of the city and therefore to the economic vitality and an active creative environment. www.creativecities.nl
The lecture was held at Pakhuis de Zwijger, also a creative hotspot in Amsterdam. Housed in a former refrigerated warehouse on the Piet Hein kade, Pakhuis de Zwijger is best known for the roads that runs through the building which connects the city with the Java-island.
That gathering of roads underneath the warehouse is a symbol of what Pakhuis de Zwijger is today; a crossroad of tradition and modernity, a meeting place of cultures and generations, melting point of disciplines and ideas, a venue of plans and practice. There are lots of lectures organized and most of the time the entrance is totally free!
The next Spatial Experiences lectures will take place on 24 May, 28 June, 13 September, 1 November and 13 December. There is a free entrance, register at secretariaat@bni.nl. The lectures last until 21h15, and after there is the opportunity to chat in the cafe while enjoying a drink offered by Delta Light®. Editors of Items and De Architect also use this platform to bring their magazines to life.
Besides that, there are regularly lectures organized about social media and gaming topics.
Check the agenda at www.dezwijger.nl.
Art as it is meant to be in all its rawness. Art for everyone.
A visit in February to the RAW art fair (The RAW expo is open until 4 March!) was for me a total new Rotterdam experience. I was very happy to discover the ‘talk of the town’ area Katendrecht; the former red light & seaman district and China town with it’s illustrious history. This area, also called De Kaap has become a safe but still very exciting and adventurous area. The peninsula is separated by a brand new connecting bridge, from Hotel New York and the cruise terminals at Rotterdam Kop van Zuid, where simultaneously, the Art and Object Rotterdam Fair took place. You can also find the new Dutch photography museum here, at the Las Palmas building.
The venue of the RAW art fair were the industrial and rough FENIX hangars, a huge space (10.000m2) and very RAW! The ground floor of the exhibition was dedicated to established and emerging international galleries, whereas the first floor was offered to artists, to show their autonomously work. Amongst the participating artist are renowned names as Armando, Atelier Van Lieshout and Pjotr Müller, but also young and promising talents as Tinkebell., Frank Bruggeman and Birgit Verwer. This floor was very dark, and the sparse theatrical lighting over the individual objects gave a very fairytale and mystic atmosphere. Focus was on photography, street-art and sculptures. Alongside the art presentations, there were events, theatre and music performances, DJ’s and parties. And very good food. All created an informal, young, fresh atmosphere.
Beside the major art fairs, there was a side program including museum and gallery tours, openings, art initiative and studio visits and parties.
Rotterdam is offering a lot on contemporary art, so good to put this annual event on your agenda for February next year. Or visit inspiring Katendrecht before 4March and discover The RAW Art expo yourself.
MEET AMSTERDAM’S FIRST PUBLIC RED CARPET
Amsterdam has recently been enriched with an inspiring hospitality concept. Hotel The Exchange, restaurant Stock and conceptstore Options! might well be the foundation of Amsterdam’s new red carpet – not to be confused with the city’s red light district. Located at the Damrak – between Amsterdam Central Station and Dam Square – it is the perfect place to get introduced with the city’s creative character in a very approachable as well as affordable way.
Hotel The Exchange is an initiative of Otto Nan and Suzanne Oxenaar, who were brave enough to start up the project which seamlessly weaves together fashion and architecture. The concept rests on a partnership with the Amsterdam Fashion Institute (AMFI) and centers on “rooms dressed as models”. This allowed the designers to treat each room as an individual, making them all a unique experience.
Since the concept should give shape to Amsterdam’s red carpet, the building needed a red carpet of its own during the opening. Therefore the entire front of the building was covered in red fabric attached to the dress of Liesbeth in ’t Hout – co-initiator of the project and former director of AMFI – was wearing. When she stepped forward The Exchange revealed itself to the public.
You’re most welcome to drop by, have a drink or a bite to eat at Stock, spoil yourself at Options! or enjoy a good night sleep in one of The Exchange’s enchanting rooms.
The Internet of Things
Jan Agelink talked about it in his trend presentation at Modefabriek. Internet is not only in computers anymore but in all kind of objects that are around us. During the Milan Salone del Mobile, designer Pieke Bergmans presented together with Lustlab the project Res Sapiens. A project that merges the digital world with the physical. It brought up a lot of questions about how our life is changing in a very fast way through the digital revolution. The demonstration of Res Sapiens showed 13 ordinary IKEA lamps on one table. They used the continuous stream of twitter tweeds as their mental energy. According the sentiment of the tweeds they lighted up, moved and projected differently. It looked like if the lamps had facial expressions and by showing these they became like personalities. The fuse of product and information design is making in this way technology invisible, working and building on humanizing the unhuman.
What design can do
Too often design is associated only with aesthetics, trends and luxury, but design can mean so much more. At its best design can change, improve, renew, inspire, involve, help or solve. In May at a yellow podium of Amsterdam’s Stadsschouwburg, speakers from different nationalities demonstrated the value of design thinking as the response to the challenges of today’s world. What Design Can Do is a cross-over between design disciplines – from architecture to product design, from graphic design to fashion design. Eye opener for me where the speakers from the BRIC countries like architects from India and China and social designer Paula Dib from Brazil who is working with crafts specialists and trained designers. That a holistic view has led to a new approach in the fashion world showed Monique van Heist. She explained how is attacking the fast turnover system that drives the fashion industry. Hello Fashion never runs out of season, it is a constantly growing line to which new items are added and old ones always remain available. The vital Olivier Toscani gave a provocative speech at the end of day one and Lidewij Edelkoort closed this Amsterdam’s new design conference with a positive lecture on trends.
ART BIENNALE VENICE
Why did I go to the 54. Art Biennale in Venice?
Art is made with the intention of stimulating thoughts and emotions. Artists have the full liberty to create and there are no boundaries. It is for me the ultimate discipline to get food for thought. Interesting of Venice is that it is the largest and oldest Biennale worldwide (started 116 year ago), presenting 89 participating countries.
A lot of countries have their own pavilion in the 10.000 m2 Giardini and Arsenale area. These individual presentations are very important in times of globalization. Countries have the space to present their culture in their own way without borders.
Also the Netherlands expressed their nationality. The Dutch pavilion (by Gerrit Rietveld) was transformed into the model of a theatre titled Opera Aperta/Loose work. Curator Guus Beumer, well-known in the fashion world as he was in the nineties the art director of the labels Orson + Bodil and So, invited artists from different disciplines showing the cultural infrastructure that characterizes the Netherlands.
The opening performance was by fashion designer Alexander van Slobbe. That Art and functional design have a connection was shown in the collateral exhibition Glasstress 2011 presenting glass sculptures specially made by contemporary artists from different nationalities among Patricia Urquiola, Jaime Hayon, Ted Noten, Zaha Hadid Kiki van Eijk and Pieke Bergmans. One of the curators of Glasstress is Lidewij Edelkoort. She is organising more and more exhibitions worldwide, visit her new www.trendtablet.com blog for dates and themes
The 54. Biennale Art stays open till November 27. My tip is to book a room on island Venice-Lido so you can take a dip in the sea to cope with the overwhelming visual impressions.
