Treviso-XYZ: Skill To Do Comes Of Doing
By definition, design is meant to enhance and improve the lives of those who interact with it. As per Bauhaus and the Modernism it spawned, it’s also supposed to do this for as many people as possible, with mass production and mass functionality at its core. Today as a result, we’re able to fill our homes and pockets with brilliantly conceived, well constructed objects thanks to the incredible progress of the most industrial of design. Nevertheless, in the century since William Morris (perhaps prophetically) decried design’s obliteration of intimate relationships with our objects, our lives and landfills have become tirelessly filled with assembly-line drivel.
Weeding through the mess it helped to bring about, design seems only recently to have discovered that it should devote more attention to its capacity to create an experience and less on a design’s ability to create that experience for everyone. From Marian Bantjes’ gorgeously constructed, hard-to-come-by graphic books to a clever piece of furniture entirely cut, planed, sanded and painted by its creator, the special power of a something well-designed and then brought to life by the same person is formidable. Especially in a world of grey widgets anonymously produced by the hundreds of thousands each.
Treviso XYZ, having sensed this critical shift have brought together a host of young craftsman innovators, a “niche of tenacious designers” who work their hands alongside their brains to bring ideas to life. The appropriately named “Skill to Do Comes of Doing” hopes to nurture artisanal talent and further the discourse and appreciation of craft in the industry. Its gallery/temporary shop is “enthusiastic praise for the cult of doing,” and sure to be a feast for the senses and a refreshing break from our Ikea chairs. And tables. And lamps. And coffee cups.
Starting the 17th of December at Via Inferiore 31 in Treviso, Italy.
Tag Christof, graphic courtesy Treviso XYZ.
