Public furnishings design exhibition in Brooklyn highlights "public entry not personal extra"

For New York’s design week, native designer Jean Lee of Furnishing Utopia has created an exhibition of public-oriented design on the Naval Cemetery Panorama in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Known as Public Entry, the exhibition options tasks designed for public use and includes two sections, a bodily outside part and an indoor set up with documentation and references at Brooklyn gallery and bookshop Head Hello.

Public Entry is a design exhibition in Brooklyn

In complete, the exhibition options 35 tasks designed to answer locales in the US, United Kingdom, Vietnam and 9 different nations, chosen from an open name put out final 12 months.

A number of these have been offered on the boardwalk on the Naval Cemetery Panorama in Brooklyn, a park and native plant panorama.

White picket fence bench with flowers in the foreground — The furnishings was put in in a reclaimed park

These outside tasks vary from fowl feeders and seed libraries to benches and group fridges, all constructed from easy supplies meant to point out “how can design serve extra as like some extent of empathy” in accordance with curator Jean Lee.

The indoor portion of the exhibition options pictures and documentation of the remaining tasks, with a map displaying the varied worldwide areas the place they’re positioned.

Colorful lost and found and book library in Public Acesss exhibition — Jean Lee of Girls and Gents Studios curated Public Entry

The entire schematics for the designs have additionally been made obtainable on-line in order that they are often repeated and modified for various contexts.

Curator Jean Lee, who’s the co-founder of Brooklyn design studio Girls and Gents, mentioned that the designs had been meant to be a celebration of “advert hoc” design practices, public area and “empathy”.

Small blue chairs meant to be used in public displayed on boardwalk — The designs had been made to foster interplay with public area

“A number of all these public entry tasks are merely designing one thing for any individual else – it could possibly be a stranger,” she advised Dezeen.

“It is an invite to work together and have interaction in a spot that maybe did not have any design. It is a reimagining of what place to be.”

Yellow community fridge project — The schematics have been revealed on-line for widespread use

The impetus for the undertaking got here each from the Covid-19 pandemic when Lee seen that folks had been spending extra time interacting with native environments and from a need to “discover design with out commerce”.

“We’re not criticizing the business by any means, however merely need to develop the lens to have a look at how design permeates all through life,” Lee advised Dezeen.

“It is the place individuals resolve to make use of one thing else and repurpose it after which repair it, and over time it turns into a kind of evolution of various individuals placing their fingers on one thing – and there is not any authorship, it isn’t about proudly owning, or taking credit score for something.”

Water toy for public use — The exhibition was accompanied by an indoor ingredient at a neighborhood bookshop and gallery Head Hello

“It is public entry, not personal extra,” added Head Hello founder Alexandra Hodkowski.

Lee additionally famous that it was necessary that designers have interaction with the communities they had been designing for, and inspired them to get permission and to know the wants of the locale, including that generally “designers can overthink” tasks and design with out assessing the precise wants or needs of a spot.

The purpose was to facilitate interplay and to not “dictate” it, she mentioned.

Bee habitat — Designs for animals, in addition to people, had been included

A variety of notable designers contributed to the outside set up, which featured designs constructed for animals in addition to people.

Mexican designer Jorge Diego Etienne created a small wood shelter for opossums, whereas Lee’s personal studio Girls and Gents created a public bookshelf and lost-and-found meant to carry quite a lot of objects.

American artist Allan Wexler created public seating with removable chairs that line as much as type a white picket fence.

New York-based Numerous Tasks labored with the native group One Love Neighborhood to create a modular public fridge constructed from painted lobster cages sourced from Maine.

Lee is a part of Furnishing Utopia, a collective that undersigned the exhibition, and takes inspiration from the easy, community-oriented designs of the Shakers, a non secular group identified for its craft and communal design.

Rotating seed library on boardwalk — Shaker seed libraries had been an inspiration for the curators

The organisation has placed on various different exhibits celebrating easy, non-commercial design initiatives.

The pictures is by John Daniel Powers.

Public Entry is on view on the Naval Cemetery Panorama from 18 Could to 25 Could, whereas the exhibition at Head Hello is on view from 18 Could to three June. For extra exhibitions, talks and occasions throughout New York’s design week, go to Dezeen’s devoted NYCxDesign information.