GRADUATION SHOW
As a tutor at the Sandberg Instituut, I curated the graduation show of the Masters of Design students, taking place in the Vondelbunker, a former air raid shelter in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam, from 7 to 10 July, 2011.
ontwerp Ruben Pater
The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades is not an exhibition – it’s a show!
Masters of Design 2011:
Brigiet van den Berg
Michele Champagne
Anja Groten
Lauren Grusenmeyer
Simona Kicurovska
Janneke de Rooij
Maartje Smits
The 6 graduating designers are experts when it comes to sensing overlooked links and creating meaningful relationships between things. They combine multiple talents, manifests themselves in networks, develop new communities, and consciously place the designer’s position in a social context. With a critical eye on current events, they speculate about the future, and forge links between apparently unconnected phenomena.
A traditional exhibition would not be a suitable medium for their research- and interaction-based projects. Therefore, visitors to the graduation show will not see static presentations but a dynamic collection of performances, workshops and interactive installations staged by the designers. They’ll take you to a Chinese massage parlour, tell you about the future of the book, introduce you to the president of the new Chinese-American union, and alert you to the existence of an invisible activist group. And with any luck, they’ll reveal the link between an air raid shelter in the Vondelpark, an ’80s hit song, and their graduation projects.
Speculations on the Future
by Nina Folkersma, tutor and curator
published in Verenigde Sandbergen, No. 67, 2011
First came the concept: instead of an exhibition, we decided to create a programme of live presentations by the designers. Then came the title: The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades, chosen from a long brainstorming list because it made an amusing nod to the promising times ahead of our design graduates. Then we found our location: the Vondelbunker, a former air raid shelter in the middle of the Vondelpark, opening again for a cultural event for the first time in years.
The title and location exist in an associative relationship to each other. Although they were chosen independently, an ominous connection suggests itself. Is this coincidence or intuition? The graduating designers are experts when it comes to sensing overlooked links and creating meaningful relationships between things. Perhaps the relationship between the title and the location isn’t so coincidental after all.
Let’s go back to 1966. An air raid shelter is built under the Van Baerlestraat viaduct in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam. It’s the Cold War era, and the world is in the grip of the atomic threat. Soviet nuclear missiles are aimed at Western Europe, and president Brezhnev has a red button in the Kremlin he can press at any second to unleash an all-annihilating nuclear war.
Twenty years later, the American band Timbuk 3 scores a hit with “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades”. People around the world interpret it as an optimistic graduation theme song. In reality, the lyrics, about a nuclear science student, paint a rather dim picture of the future. The student’s “bright” future and “job waiting” refer to the threat of nuclear war and the coming need for atomic specialists.
In the same year, 1986, a reactor at Russia’s Chernobyl nuclear plant explodes. The large amount of radioactive material released makes it the worst nuclear accident to date.
March 2011. The world narrowly escapes a new nuclear disaster. After an earthquake and the tsunami that follows, a series of explosions takes place at a nuclear plant in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, raising fears of fallout.
July 2011. Seven final-year students and six first-year students in the design department of the Sandberg Institute present their projects in the Vondelbunker. They cast a critical eye on current events, speculate about the future, and forge links between apparently unconnected phenomena. A traditional exhibition would not be a suitable medium for their research- and interaction-based projects. Therefore, visitors to the graduation show will not see static presentations but a dynamic collection of performances, workshops and interactive installations staged by the designers. They’ll take you to a Chinese massage parlour, tell you about the future of the book, introduce you to the president of the new Chinese-American union, and alert you to the existence of an invisible activist group. And with any luck, they’ll reveal the link between an air raid shelter in the Vondelpark, an ’80s hit song, and their graduation projects.
