The Art Of Conversation:
London—Berlin showcases specially created original work from a selected group of 20 young and established designers and design studios and exhibits the results in both London at Idea Generation Gallery and Berlin at Program Gallery.
From January to March 2010 the participants, 10 London based design studios and 10 Berlin based design studios, played a visual game of Chinese Whispers. Each participant was presented with a work/idea from the previous participant in the chain via a Skype chat, they then had 3 days to interpret it and forward their results to the next participant.
These responses could take any form; from sculpture to performance, photograph to text.
Far from being a simple showcase of each individual’s work, this is a dynamic collaborative process in which the creatives engaged with and reinterpret concepts and designs generated by their fellow designers. The exhibitions are an exemplification of the design process itself laying bare the ways in which ideas are realised visually through a multiplicity of techniques, materials and cultural influences.
As such the curators hope to demonstrate the different approaches and aesthetics of London practitioners and their Berlin based counterparts whilst facilitating a complex mash up of the two. We hope that this resulting body of works demonstrates that creativity is never predictable and infinitely varied.
Additionally to the created pieces of artwork, each participating studio has designed a Limited Edition two colour screen print in response to their involvement in the process.
This will further allow the designers to showcase an uninhibited style and will act as a point of reference for the work they have produced during the The Art of Conversation: London—Berlin. These prints will be available for purchase both at the exhibitions and online, see the banner at the top of this website to take you to our online shop.
“We hope the show is a journey allowing the viewer to follow the tangential ideas of the participants. Often exhibitions only show finished works, and the process of reaching them can be just as interesting. This show is unique in that the finished pieces are both the inspiration for the work and the work itself”