Humanity for Next Generation

A New Humanity: Envisioning a Bauhaus future through industrial arts and design technology

By Gwangju Design Biennale

2019GwangjuDesignBiennale

Still Life (2019/2019) by TacGwangju Design Biennale

The Staatliches Bauhaus, commonly known as the Bauhaus, was founded 100 years ago in 1919. The Bauhaus formed the groundwork for new aesthetic forms and its influence reached far and wide into modern architecture, education, contemporary art and, more specifically, into graphic, interior, industrial and stage design. The Bauhaus as a ‘style’ is not a set of concretised laws or norms, but rather a shifting spirit that has become more vivid in our contemporary reality. The various approaches, trials and errors that the Bauhaus has faced prompts us to make our world a fine and functional place to live, to contribute to our communities, and to respond to generational problems about the future without dwelling in the past. Ultimately, we realize that what the Bauhaus pursued was a new humanity, a comprehensive perspective for producing a variety of results, and this is the reason why the Bauhaus has continued to thrive for 100 years.

Main exhibition curator interviewGwangju Design Biennale

Interview Excerpts from the curator of Main Exhibition 2, Seungmin Kang

The year of 2019 marks the 100th anniversary of Bauhaus which is the most influential movement in the history of design and art. I believe the significant role of design seeks to explore how design enables contribution to people’s life and how it allows people to pursue better way of living. Most importantly, I want to address that contemporary designers and artists are concerned about the boundaries between crafts and design resulted in mass production even to this date. From that on, The Humanity for Next Generation exhibition is intended to highlight the works of design, specifically architectural design, addressing the issue of living as a community and to present the on-going challenges in sharing the life of the sustainable future.

Tiny Foundation by GermanGwangju Design Biennale

To celebrate the 100 year anniversary of Bauhaus in 2019 the Tiny Foundation created a travelling exhibition called 'Wohnmaschine': a 15 sqm big tiny house copies the iconic style of Bauhaus Dessau in the scale of 1:6. A 2 - room - apartment with bathroom and kitchen is incorporated into this surprising - ly small space. The so called 'Wonderhome' is the Tiny Foundation's research project to explore affordable living space in a modular design. The 'Wonderhome' is the smallest module of a much larger architectural vision called 'Circular City'. The 'Wohnmaschine' forms part of a project called 'Spinning Trian - gles' to raise the question: How do we want to live in the future?

Someone’s window (2019/2019) by Heewon KimGwangju Design Biennale

Someone’s window series is a collection of window themed photography/video art pieces reinterpreting the relationship between the artist and the beholder’s perspective. The intention of the art piece is to create a transformative rapport within the space of the photograph/video that may let the viewer and master of the space have a connective moment. This particular Bauhaus edition of the Someone’s Window series has been carefully planned to walk in the footsteps of the Bauhaus masters by visiting key cities of the movement by the sequence of Berlin – Dessau – Weimar. Someone’s Window Bauhaus is a collection of videos of the Dessau campus corridor and lecture room windows and photos of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Berlin Landhaus Lemke master bedroom window.

Bauhaus Song (2019/2019) by Sulki and MinGwangju Design Biennale

Bauhaus is a legend, in the literal sense of the word: it lies right at the heart of modern design's creation myth, and in the subsequent tales of its triumphs and defeats. There is a parallel between celebrating the 100th anniversary of Bauhaus in Korea, which had no known direct contact with the school, and the country's still-commonplace rituals to remember noble ancestors who may not have even existed. The Bauhaus Song is meant to be a chant to the imaginary ancestral rite. True to the spirit of myths, it takes the form from the prominent contemporary vehicle of oral transmissinom, hip hop music.

Isang - Nalgae - 1936.9 (2019/2019) by Sangsoo Ahn and AG Typography Institute + Paju Typography InstituteGwangju Design Biennale

The poet Yi Sang, regarded as a pioneer of modern Korean typography, became acquainted early on with Bauhaus through Moholy-Nagy. In the prologue of 'Joseon and Architecture', which he helped edit, Yi Sang quotes Moholy-Nagy’s art education philosophy that 'the future needs the whole man' in the industrialized era with division of labor. Bauhaus had a global influence during the early 1930s when Yi Sang was a student, and Bauhaus and Moholy-Nagy's ideas naturally spread to Gyeongseong Engineering College classrooms by young Japanese professors. The 'dynamic-new vision' of Moholy-Nagy's space-time appears to have had a tremendous influence on the young architect Yi sang during his formative years.

The Hangeul font named 'Yi Sang Font' was created by the artist in honor of Yi Sang, the avant-garde of modern Korean design. The protagonist of the novel 'Wings', as quoted in this work, symbolizes the “whole man” still relevant in our present day.

Knot Growing Knot Growing (2018/2019) by Kwangh LeeGwangju Design Biennale

With the discovery of various kinds of knots, humanity became able to create tools with different knots to suit their needs, which greatly simplified hunting, fishing, building, and the transportation of goods. Just like in the past, in modern times, there are still certain unavoidable necessities which we all face. I feel like these necessities of life take on a greater meaning than simply striving for ease or convenience. As I admire the results of the necessary and repetitive act of creating things using strings and knots, I try to find beauty in the time and simple act of connecting the past and present with our own hands, rather than simply admiring the beauty of the perfectly designed finished products.

Facet (2015/2015) by kunsikGwangju Design Biennale

Facet is a wall - mounted cabinet which is intended to use to store things. It can be transformed as a desk or a dresser once the flap door is opened down. Facet, which means a cut surface of a mineral such as diamond, has a cubic shape with formative aesthetic object by making it into a traditional production method. The design feature is that geometric spaces are expanded by opening doors that are consistent but of different shapes.

Shelf No. Shelf No. (2019/2019) by kunsikGwangju Design Biennale

Shelf No.(Shelf number) is a wall hanging shelf that books and objects can be placed on. It was designed that the values of the crafted piece and production products, which are often considered as opposite concepts, can have an appropriate balance within this project.

Wave(파도) Wave(파도) (2019/2019) by Seoyoung ShinGwangju Design Biennale

WAVE created by designer Seoyoung takes the wool from the farm in the Swedish island(Oland), spinning it by herself, coloring it with natural dyeing, putting it on the loom, and weaving it by hand. These handwoven blankets come from nature contains unique texture.

Still Life (2019/2019) by TacGwangju Design Biennale

The artist enlarged the image, which presents various complex preferences, into a size that would be recognized as a space, to offer an experience for viewers to view the various preferences with their own perspectives and examine their own preferences at an objective point of view. This piece is intended to become a growing experimental space where illustrations become designs, designs become art, and images become everyday life.

Haze series Haze series by Wonmin ParkGwangju Design Biennale

The artist himself says that he aims for a 'sense of lightness and purity' and that the works 'engage with their surroundings'. Along with the impact of its opaqueness and transparency, Wonmin Park chose resin for its texture giving him 'the sensation of painting enveloped by air'. This forms part of his exploration of substantiality versus insubstantiality and his artistic evaluation of uncertainty, ambiguity and vagueness.

ENGINEERED NATURE EN_LS2 (2018/2018) by WOLFS + JUNG 울프스앤정Gwangju Design Biennale

The is an exploration of the limitations of engineered thinking, to reconsider our relationship with the natural world.a call to collaboration with rather than dominion over nature. Engineered Nature is a conceptual project that questions the necessary yet perfidious hubris of designers; it confronts us with engineered nature in the shape of geometric and symmetrical trees. The objects are designed to be both attractive yet also highlight the loss of resolution and complexity compared with natural beings. The project is an exploration of the limitations of engineered thinking, an invitation to reconsider our relationship with the natural world, a call to collaboration with rather than dominion over nature.

Composition 59A(2016) (2016/2016) by Bo Young JungGwangju Design Biennale

Apartment floor plans now define the spatial notion and cultural configuration of Koreans' daily life. This abrupt evolution of the urban landscape has had a tremendous impact on Korean culture and society at large.

Korean Composition 59A mirrors a typical modern Korean home available today and invites viewers to reflect on contemporary Korean living conditions and its social,historical and cultural references.

2’13”, 4.6 meters (2019/2019) by Na KimGwangju Design Biennale

The Bauhaus, that celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, aspired after integrating design from a perspective of equality in society, based on overall aesthetics. And this purpose is based on multidisciplinary experiments on the body and space, exploring basic conditions of humanity. In particular, these attempts stand out in the traditions of the Bauhaus festivals and stage experiments.
2'13", 4.6 Meters suggests a reinterpreted stage space for the viewer to imagine the performer's actions, focusing on the relationship between space and body.

PUBLIC LIVING ROOM (2017/2017) by VITRA and Vitra Design MuseumGwangju Design Biennale

The twenty-one collective housing projects shown here are presented as sectional models and assembled into a piece of fictional city. The design of the model sections accentuates the communal aspects and their contribution to the city by presenting all the communally used rooms and areas in detail and colour-coding them according to how public they are. The photos are the work of photographer Daniel Burchard, who has documented the communal areas of eight projects in Berlin, Basel, Zurich, Vienna, and Tokyo.

Credits: Story

Humanity for Next Generation

Curator
Seungmin Kang
Project Manager
Dohyun Kim

Coordinator
Sujin Shin

Artist
Vitra Design Museum
Goethe Institut
Tiny Foundation(Tiny Collective & EMK)
Sulki & Min
Wolfs & Jung
Heewon Kim
Chunghee Lim
Seoyoung Shin
Tac O
Hyunseon Kang
Kunsik Choi
Na Kim
Wonmin Park
Kwangho Lee
Sangsoo Ahn

GwangjuDesignCenter
Eunji Choi

Credits: All media
The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.
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