April 29, 2019
NYCxDesign 2019: Preview Ventura Projects’ Bold Infusion of Dutch Design to ICFF
Ventura Projects’ New York edition will come to ICFF (May 19–22) for the third time, featuring 17 Dutch exhibitors, including established brands and emerging talents pushing the field forward.
With a tie-dyed pattern that mimics the topography of the polluted landscape from which it’s sourced, the Kaumera Kimono is an act of rebellion. Courtesy the designers
Margriet Vollenberg began Ventura Projects ten years ago to create a dynamic, international exhibition platform that could connect designers and studios with commercial labels, academies, galleries, and institutions. This year, Ventura Projects’ New York edition will come to ICFF (May 19–22) for the third time, featuring 17 Dutch exhibitors. Alongside more established brands such as Artifort, Cartoni Design, and Studio HENK, “Ventura New York—the Dutch edition” will showcase a number of emerging talents pushing the field forward, among them Studio Nienke Hoogvliet, Jalila Essaïdi, and Creative Chef.
For Vollenberg, design is about more than the finished product, and is defined by myriad processes and exchanges involved in its production. Accordingly, a sense of experimentation—namely, in materials and fabrication—weaves through the collection soon to be on view at ICFF. The show especially highlights those innovations that draw upon unconventional uses of technology.
“Sustainability in Dutch design is not a question anymore, but the status quo,” says Vollenberg. Indeed, what is notable about many of the projects is the way in which they embrace environmentalism, particularly when it comes to using waste and pollution as raw materials—a resourcefulness foreshadowed in the work of other Dutch designers like Piet Hein Eek.
Take Nienke Hoogvliet’s Kaumera Kimono, which combines dyes extracted from wastewater such as Anammox and Vivianite with the cutting-edge material Kaumera, an alginate-like biopolymer that amplifies a textile’s ability to absorb dye. The result is that less water is required—and polluted—in the dyeing process.
Vollenberg remarks that prioritizing experimental approaches sometimes means that applications aren’t always clear. But if this edition of Ventura Projects is any indication, the up-and-coming generation of Dutch designers will be raising new questions as well as possibilities to contend with the mounting environmental crises that define our time.
Want more information about NYCxDesign 2019? See our ever-growing collection of previews, events coverage, profiles, and more, here.
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