In the intimate environment of a private penthouse in the heart of Ventura Lambrate, the exhibition received more than 23,000 visitors. Art and design professionals, international press and the general public could view in-situ installations and attend a rich programme of performances and design discussions.

Alice Rawsthorn, design critic of the International New York Times, congratulated the academy on its successful presentation and Another Magazine named RESET a trendsetter for 2016.

Some highlights

RESET explored the need for a complete reset in our approach to addressing today’s urgent societal issues such as the sustainability of our economic system, effects of technological innovations, migration, energy dependence, durability of political systems and the impact of design and art on daily life.

Natasha Taylor’s performance and documentary entitled “Foreign Object” presented a surprising perspective on an iconic design item – the folding chair – viewed and activated by professional wrestlers as a weapon. Instead of showing new products, Koos Breen and Fabian Bredt established a chain of forms (ideas and opportunities) based on associative morphologic process, distributed throughout the exhibition. The performative installation of Marijn Ottenhof – “Continuous Form’ – confronted visitors with the awkwardness of selling a fictive product described as unique in its uniformity and compliance to EU regulation. Together, but each in their own way, they moved beyond the traditional design object to RESET the context of the design fair.

Bestowing visitors a RESET of perception, Lorena van Bunningen and Majda Vidakovic’s time-based installation “A passing space”, transformed the given location by gradually peeling off layers of coloured latex. Every day, every hour and every minute, visitors experienced a different work. Exploring fluidity in space, Anne Kranenborg’s colourful foam elements – “Fitfully still” – functioned as accents or obstructions of overlooked thresholds, while Ciro Duclos’ installations “Heras” overlaid reflections of the environment and self-reflection. Presented as an alluring bar, “The Feast of Inequality” by Noortje de Brouwer and Nienke Sikkema confronted visitors to experience the frustration of being treated differently for no apparent reason.

With “Treaties and Gifts of Shifting Wills” Quinsy Gario dug into Italy’s colonial past and its attempts to colonize Ethiopia, making a startling connection with the present-day refugee crisis. In a stand-up performance, Gario and his brother depicted poetic interpretations of the non-linear construction of borders and cultural history.

Afternoon RESETs

Furthermore, the exhibition hosted a programme of Afternoon RESETs, an open platform for discussions on current design issues. Design critic and curator Angela Rui spoke to architecture and design curator Maja Vardjan and artistic director of Z33 Jan Boelen about a future design fair echoing the theme of RESET. Ernst van der Hoeven and Kirsten Algera from MacGuffin Magazine invited “ex-ex-designers” Lernert & Sander to talk about their new ambitions as designers. Martina Muzi and Tamar Shafrir from Space Caviar entered into a dialogue with RESET visitors at a Domestic Design Jam Session. In addition, for the first time at RESET, the European Design Parliament met for a round table discussion to give form to a new and influential actor in the European design scene. The Dutch Ambassador in Rome, Joep Wijnands, visited the exhibition with a delegation led by the Creative Industries Fund NL and spoke with students and curators.

Reset of design process

The slogan ‘Design is collaboration’ spurred the exhibition design team to reset the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk. Instead of designing a single character that functions independently to the objects on display they opted to create Johnson: a caretaker with multiple personalities who guided the different voices residing in his apartment. Some of whom are independent, while others showed a great togetherness or were overtly hostile. By using Johnson as a proxy, the team found a constructive way to map these players and encouraged visual conversations between them. Collaboratively, they composed a series of rich narratives that were in constant dialogue within the residence of Johnson.

RESET Participants

Fabian Bredt, Koos Breen, Lynne Brouwer, Noortje de Brouwer, Lorena van Bunningen, Rob van der Burg, Ciro Duclos, Quinsy Gario, Amir Houieh, Esther Hovers, Gábor Kerekes, Anne Kranenborg, Elide Mozzorecchi, Marijn Ottenhof, Yaprak Sayar, Vera van de Seyp, Nienke Sikkema, Jeannette Slütter, Natasha Taylor, Majda Vidakovic.

RESET Team

Curatorial team: Herman Verkerk, Marie Ilse Bourlanges, Elena Khurtova, Dorothé Orczyk and Barend Koolhaas
Exhibition design: Barend Koolhaas, Zsófia Kollár, Rick Mouwen, Elide Mozzorecchi, Jasmijn Muskens, Anna Sitnikova
Graphic design: Eline van der Ploeg & Inês Da Costa
Type design: Alexandre Saumier Demers, Étienne Aubert Bonn