On Wednesday, September 18, the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (MDAD) in Riga, in collaboration with Design Export Alliance, will open the exhibition Autumn, continuing the pop-up exhibition series The Close up of Design Processes. Until December 1, the exhibition will feature products from six Latvian design brands that will reveal the colourful diversity of autumn through the contrasts of materials.
«The golden Latvian autumn will settle in the museum. The sun descends lower on the horizon, and its golden rays pierce through the autumnal Latvian landscape, creating true opulence. They illuminate the rich autumn colours while highlighting the textures of natural materials,» emphasises the exhibition curator, Ieva Kalēja. The new pop-up exhibition will focus on the tactility of materials, revealing to the viewer their natural diversity: smooth, shiny glass, golden brass surfaces, rough tree bark, warm earth clay, and the saturation of natural rust.
The exhibition will showcase products from six Latvian brands: Kanttari, Studio Sarmīte, An&angel, Vaidava Ceramics, Livette’s Wallpaper, and Mammalampa, all contributing to the ambience characteristic of a Latvian autumn. The Kanttari furniture brand is characterised by luxury and brilliance, highly valuing the craftsmanship of artisans. The design and research studio Studio Sarmīte repurposes materials into new products through an experimental approach. Sarmīte Poļakova, the founder of Studio Sarmīte, along with designer Māra Bērziņa, received the Grand Prix of the National Design Award of Latvia this year. Vaidava Ceramics will be represented by its well-known Eclipse Gold collection and will also showcase the company’s desire to collaborate with young designers — the harvest storage dishes featured in the exhibit are the diploma work of Ādams Sūna, a graduate of Riga School of Design and Art. Livette’s Wallpaper will reveal its endless offering of wallpaper motifs, while An&angel will unveil a new facet in glass design. The brand Mammalampa will present its lesser-known collection, The Queen, where two contrasting materials, gold and rust, meet.
The exhibition The Close up of Design Processes: Autumn is on view at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design from September 18 to December 1.
About cooperation between MDAD and the Design Export Alliance
In honour of the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, the project The Close-Up of Design Processes has been created in collaboration with the association Design Export Alliance. Four pop-up exhibitions will be organised throughout the year, each replacing the previous one. All of them are implemented in an innovative format by integrating into the museum’s 3rd-floor permanent display Design Process, which introduces Latvian design history since the 1960s. The concept and visual solution for this exhibition cycle find its inspiration in one of the four seasons — spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Each exhibition will showcase success stories of several well-known Latvian brands, using careful sample selection and audiovisual elements. Exclusively prepared video stories will reveal the process of product development and behind-the-scenes glimpses. The pop-up exhibition project has been implemented thanks to the initiative of MDAD and the creative vision of Ieva Kalēja who represents the association Design Export Alliance and is curator of the anniversary series. The graphic identity of the cycle is created by Liene Drāzniece.
Viedokļi