Design Columns

This summer Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is launching Design Columns, a series of exhibitions that investigates how design and innovation respond to current social questions.

Design Columns kicks off with ‘Micro Impact’, an exhibition inspired by the publicity surrounding the scientific research into the bird flue virus at the Erasmus Medical Center. Our growing knowledge of the microbiology inspires designers to explore new applications and forms of expression. ‘Micro Impact’ includes the work of designers Pieke Bergmans, Mattijs Munnik, Thomas Twaites, Suzanne Lee and fashion designer Iris van Herpen.

A series of Design Columns
The series will deal with a new topical theme every three months. In each five to ten designers will present products, prototypes and films that will encourage the public to think about topical issues from a new perspective. In this way the museum the museum functions as a space where new ideas are made visible. The starting point of each presentation is the notion that designers can change the world. The objects displayed in the Design Columns demonstrate how knowledge and experimentation can influence the world. Designers regard everyday reality as a source of inspiration for their imagination. These presentations show the importance of creativity for society. Design is the bridge between society and creativity.

Microscopic worms and bee police
All the works in ‘Micro Impact’ are related to microscopic dorms of life. Mattijs Munnik, who was nominated for the Rotterdam Design Prize in 2011, presents his ‘Microscopic Opera’, a sonic translation of the specific twisting movements of five different mutations of the microscopic worm Caenorhabditis elegans. In the film ‘Policing Genes’, Thomas Twaites proposes a fictional method of detecting illegally manipulated plants. Bees take the pollen as evidence to their hive, and indicate the location of the plants through their dance upon their return. Beekeepers could become a new branch of the police.