Designblog

The mountain of porcelain in the first hall of the museum can connect on many point to an event in Geneva : ” L’escalade ” (the climbing)

This invading of broken objects refers to the invasion from the Savoy.

During the longest and darkest night of the year, soldiers invaded the city.

But Geneva defended itself and ” La mère royaume ” (the kingdom mother), was making a big hot soup, and topple it on the enemies. First the cauldron was an everyday object and now it is the symbol of popular resistance and independence in our collective memory.

Each year, chocolate maker and supermarket make thousands chocolate cauldrons with sugar vegetables in it.

The tradition wants the oldest and the youngest to break the cauldron and say « this is how died enemies of the republic ». Then you eat all broken pieces of chocolate.

The other point of the porcelain mountain was the aspect of mass consumption, wich can be connected to the moutain of chocolate cauldron in the shops a few weeks before the events. And the part that you create something, eat it, and re start one year after, and again and again.

Netmenders are immediately connected to the concept of folklore.
Now we do it industrially, there is no need of preserving this kind of
techniques in order to have sea-nets. Nowadays it’s more convenient to
buy a new one than repair a broken one.

For this reason it's said that technologies are destroying folklore.
It's like saying that we shouldn't live the present
because it leads too far from the past.

Folklore is (in one of the numerous definitions) a word to define
that part of the culture that deals with popular more or less spontaneous
habits and beliefs.
The word was introduced when there was still a strong relationship
with folks, villages etc.
Now that society has changed we find it difficult to apply the term folklore
to contemporary matter. 
The Zuiderzee exhibition confirmed this idea. 
The contemporary-times involvement wasn't about contemporary folklore, 
but about reinterpretation, 
modern design inspired by old dutch folklore. 
While taste, style and aesthetic values are continuously evolving 
human behaviors don't change that much in time, they just adapt. 
I think we can find these recursive characteristics on the internet. 
And here comes my "involvement".
I found out that just as I've never been into 
my country/city traditions, i also (do not) relate 
with current habits on the internet. 
I'm just geographically connected, trough my ip, to the rest of the network 
like a 18th century's person who was not participating to 
its village folk's habits and celebrations. 
On the other hand, all the people always up to date with memes and myths on the internet, 
using social-networks, blogs, forums and chats, 
corresponds to the folk of that time. 
Different context, different medium of transmission, different people, 
same dynamics. 
We will see 

The exhibition at the Zuiderzeemuseum made me think of the term Folklore and it’s definition. What is folklore exactly? Is it a period in time or a certain style? There was clothes, drawings and design objects at the exibition as well as graffiti from Shoe. Is that Folklore too? For me folklore is a period of time, with a certain way of style that we can look back upon. We don’t think of folklore if we look at ourselves today! We are not in a kind of folklore YET, we will be in the future, for sure. But not today. And graffiti will be a part of our folklore too, because it is a big part of our culture, but that time hasn’t come yet. Maybe in a 100 years people will look back at us and talk about the funny way of our communication; ‘HAHA they used walls and paint to express their feelings.” But not today, we don’t see graffiti that way, for us it is normal, it is just something that is there. As it was for the people wearing ‘kraplaps’ and the traditional clothing. They didn’t look at themselves, surprised, they way we do now. Graffiti is our culture, not our folklore. Yet.

…

The concentration is at its highest point but the mind is totally free.

The figure is still and only the old hands are moving in a certain rhythm.

They work very precisely, repeating the cercal of movements, every one of which is polished to the perfection. These hands have been doing that for years. They know every movement and every detail of the material in them, which becomes very obedient in these hands.

In the room there stand a bit sweet thin scent, the scent of a birch bark. This scent and the feeling of a wooden strip between the fingers give this incredible warmth and create the illusion of a forest around.

At a certain point, the process becomes a meditation, and there is no more distinction between the material and the hands. They become a single indivisible whole. And at this very moment the nature triumphs, because at this very moment two of her creatures are brought together in the beautiful eternal harmony.

Wachten aan Wal

Tekst – lied

Het schommelt in mij hoofd

Schommelt  al dagen, heen, weer

 je bent weg, misschien vertrokken

Uitkijkend op de rivier, zie ik waar jij hoort te zijn

Ergens ver weg, aan de overkant

En op de rivier, langs het stromende water

Op weg naar waar het hoort, vaart een bootje

Het dobbert zachtjes heen en weer

Misschien ben jij het wel

De deining en de wind steekt op,

Slinger ik  naar gedachten, verlangens,

Van wat wij zouden kunnen zijn,

Wachtend aan wal,

Wachten aan wal

We zouden kunnen zingen van geluk

We zouden kunnen zingen van geluk

We zouden kunnen dansen

Aan de overkant

Aan de overkant zijn bergen, en ook dalen

We zouden de weg kunnen vinden, met of zonder te verdwalen

Mijn oren suizen

De waaiende wind, mijn blonde haren

En daar nog steeds dat bootje waar wij op zouden kunnen varen

Rechtdoor, naar de overkant

We zouden kunnen

Wachtend aan wal

Wachten aan wal

Wachten aan wal

Zingen van geluk

We zouden kunnen dansen van geluk

We zouden kunnen samen,

Aan de overkant

I haven’t been able to make a connection between their world and mine. Their world seems to be so far away from mine.

They all look the same; they eat the same, read the same, do the same. Are they even different people? The only way to preserve your world is to close it off from everything outside. Then you can continue in your eternal circle.

I know one thing: you can’t end something entirely. Influences will be there anyway; perhaps drop by drop, but drops are water too. Like water coming through a small hole in the dyke, drop by drop it fills the land with water and finally floods it untill there’s nothing left.

It’s a good thing that Hans Brinker put his finger in the dyke.

Moving again

and as usual somebody elses home – not mine. Strange place again.

They will not tell me about their tales, nor teach me their songs, nor share their wishes. Keeping mum like the puppets in a museum.

It is just what I see.

Their slow thoughts gahtering together behind the fences, which seperate their belongings. There into the woods. Closed faces, stubborn and the city people are not worth it anyway. And steps you hardly hear, sound is disappaering in thick layers of fallen spruce needles. Who shot the dog, the roaming, the strange one? It starts getting cold. But one stays. One does this and this and this – but never this. This girl, on the photo – you don´t know her anyway. This is mine – this is yours. Don’t dare a step.

I ask who is closing all the window shutters a long time before dawn? Who draws the lines? Who is hiding all the storys? Who is stealing the whispers about the people who did never return? And I ask who is removing the walls of snow and who is bringing the brothers to remain violently silent while sharing their lifes? Why do they stay calm when they see what they should not?

I ask questions, but the answers I get back, I can not be satisfied with.

Select some real kitsch. Make it as tacky as you can. Deeply inelegant. Add some showy details. Mix it with tasteless notes, stir in cheap bits, put a pinch of mass-produced gaudiness and some fake comedy together with a touch of absurdity. Leave it to stand for a while and here we go… you may enjoy a magnificent and never-ending touristic enjoyment.

Folklore, I love you. You almost made me hate my region. Perverted rituals and misused symbols… I haven’t digested the mixture and I couldn’t think of producing a nice folklore-adapted design yet. At least not for now.

Still, I shall not pretend it is not part of my life. And part of my meals, actually! “Crêpes”, “galettes”, “far”, “kouign aman”, “palets” and other “lekker” buttery delights from Bretagne (France) are certainly what makes me enjoy folklore, after all. But then, is it really folklore or is it more a matter of tradition?
Do the ancestral recipes need to be translated* for the outsiders to actually become “official folklore”?

Anyways, as long as it does taste good, one would say… As a matter of fact, I ran out of milk the other day and thus I had to use soy milk when I made the tradional “far breton”. I was surprised to see that it didn’t taste bad at all! Sacrilege? Adaptation? Call it how you wish, but please never tell my grand-mother about it…

It is clear that the Lithuanians, the last European pagans remember their vernacular roots a little better than Western Europeans (even the in Soviet times promoted “pseudo folklore” was not able to erase Lithuanians connection with their tradition).

As one of the most important components of folklore in Lithuania is music I found that the contemporary electronical music scene has a relation with the old folklore songs. A number of musicians experiment sounds of folklore music in their electronic tunes with the nostalgia for our utopian pagan past. Therefore a genre of folklore music- ‘freakfolk’ appeared. The best example is Alina Orlova the so called ‘freakfolk’ performer,who grew up in the eastern Lithuania where life of people there is not touched with technology so much, where people still have stronger impact of folklore left. As a result of this a lot of music festivals are surrounded by certain rituals. A spiritual atmosphere is uphold in which people try not to forget the continuity of the spoken heritage and try to relate or combine their modern lives with the old tradition.

I think about a lot of things, but one of the things I mainly think about is food.
I am one of those who loves to travel and explore new places. When I am traveling in another country I hunger to try some bizarre dish. I have come across crazy foods such as: frog, crocodile, different kinds of candied insects amongst other things. But the strangest and smelliest food I have ever eaten is probably a dish from my  home country! I am talking about the Swedish Surströmming.

Originally it comes from the north part of Sweden but is sold throughout
the country. The translation of Surströmming is Sour herring. The special thing with this fish is that it is fermented in a can for at least 9-12 months before you eat it. It takes a little courage for some people to eat and not everyone likes it. Other people love it, my grandparents ate it frequently as a Sunday dish.

So you are wondering how do you eat it? Traditionally it is eaten in the autumn time together with friends and family with tunnbröd a (flat bred ), sliced union and potatoes, most people drink aquavit and beer as accompaniments but some people have it with milk!

If you are interested in trying there are some receipt on the website: www.surstromming.se and you can also find it in some special food shops. (But be careful when you open the cans it is very important to put them under water otherwise the sour fish can explode.)

If there is one of the things I like in the country where I came from is the contrast between the white and the deep blue from the houses. It was in an instant that i made that connection to the well known Delft blue.

In the XV century the paintings in ceramics was brought to both, Portugal and Netherlands, by the Italians. From Islamic and Chinese origins, this ceramic technic started to be developed as a cultural tradition. Following different ways in that production, Portugal developed the technic of the big blue tile panel paintings with representations of historical and religious moments. Netherlands, in a slightly different way, got worldly famous with the Delft blue landscapes paintings in pottery such as plates and the well known tulip jars.

In Portugal, more then just folklore, this tile panel paintings are now revived in interior decoration from new modern buildings. Also used as an inspiration for fashion clothing and accessories, it pierced right through centuries from the old to the new age.

Israel is only 60 years old, so it’s hard to define what exactly Israeli folklore is. One thing is certain – if you’re an Israeli between the ages of 18 to 25 you must own at least one big trekking backpack. On high-school graduation, on the 18^th birthday or on any other event that happens to take place around that time of your life, the most important gift you will receive is the big backpack for the following years. First, the military service years, in which the backpack is almost a status symbol among the guys, after that maybe a year in a kibbutz, and then the big trip to finalize these last few years. In the end, the backpack is covered in patches, sketches, notes and symbols it had accumulated over these years and becomes a sort of journal. I think it symbolizes an experience that everyone has to go through and which is a big part of growing up in Israel.

Zuiderzeewerken I, Halssieraad Spakenburg 2009 (zilver) / Willemijn de Greef :courtesy Marzee

At the exhibition “Gone With the Wind” I saw a series of oversized necklaces made by Willemijn De Greef. The size of these necklaces made it seem like they were made for gods and I had the association of the gods in the Norse mythology. In this mythology jewelry play an important role. For example the goddess Freja owns a necklace called Brisingamen.

As a child I was very fascinated by the tales of the Norse mythology. The stories were told to me in school and it was interesting to know that the people who lived their life’s by the rules of this religion had walked the same grounds as me.

I think it’s interesting to think of the mystical beauty jewelry represents in such an old mythology. It puts the concept of jewelry in an interesting perspective, that the fascination of it is so old, and it becomes very clear that the value of jewelry is definitely not only material

When I saw the work of Caroline Fuchs, Appeltjes van Oranje, the mannequin children playing in outrageous bizarre clothes, I connected the piece to the changelings in the old folk tales of my country Iceland, called “þjóðsögur”, because I thought they looked so creepy! For a very long time these “þjóðsögur” only existed orally, they were passed down from generation to generation. In the stories about the changelings, elves would steal an infant and replace it usually with an old elf who would take on the image of the infant. This changeling would cry relentlessly, be greedy and behave mischievously. The parents did not know what hit them! In the tales when the mother realizes that she is actually taking care of a changeling she often tries to harm it, she beats and kicks it. Cue a strange old elf-lady to enter bearing the true child in her arms and she usually says something like: “I cherish and love your son but you abuse my husband!” Then she leaves the child with her mother and leads her husband away. The “þjóðsögur” are still told today and read and enjoyed. They are one of the most important parts of our cultural heritage. People also make references to them in everyday life, for example when a child is behaving badly people will call it a changeling.

Growing up with two different cultures, Switzerland and Italy, I associate a lot of feelings with Folklore.
In the exhibition Gone with the wind I felt a special connection to the 7 contemporary design interpretation of the net menders. Across the room you just saw black-white dresses that looked similar. Amidst the net-landscape I caught the details. It reminded me of the feeling I had in my childhood when we went to a farmer festival of my Swiss-grandfather. I wore my traditional costume and was amazed by all the others. They looked all so perfect in it and every costume was different when I looked closer. One had more stitches or more golden knobs. They came from different cities. Every canton has their own traditional costume and also inside of the canton there are differences between the regions or daytimes. The “Kantönligeist”, as we say in Switzerland, is omnipresent.

It was in the middle of the ‘Walpurgisnacht’ (the night from April 30 to May1) when a small group of German teenagers sneaked to the marketplace of a neighbouring village in Oberfranken to steal the ‘Maibaum’ which was supposed to be erected there during the festive gathering the following morning. If they succeeded the villagers would have to pay, according to this Bavarian custom, a tribute of beer and food in order to retrieve it.

It is believed that every ‘Maibaum’ has a blessing effect on its town. It is a symbol of fertility and prosperity. Although its contemporary form dates back to the 16th century its real origin is far older: Germanic tribes already worshipped holy trees long before they were christianized. Presumably these cults have their seeds in ‘Yggdrasil’, the mythologic Norse ‘World Tree’.

The Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuizen / Holland exhibits a modern chintz which also shows a ‘Tree of Life’. To some extend it might have the same mythologic background as the German ‘Maibaum’.

Generally the ‘Tree of Life’ is an archetype which is deeply rooted in the psyche of almost every culture. But what does it really mean to us today in our high-speed society in a more or less globalised world? And will it still have a meaning in the future?

The noise from the boots that hit the cold wet floor, yelling men shouting and cursing, fork lift trucks and pallets that hit the floor with a loud bang. And the ice-cold air from the freezers. This all together make you realize your in the fishing harbors of IJmuiden. Typical for this environment.

From their sixteenth age the lads in IJmuiden are ready to work in these harbors or as fishermen on sea. They get the full gear. A blue overall, yellow boots, yellow gloves, a tattoo of an anchor, ship or mermaid. And of course the golden earrings.

Atelier Ted Noten made a collection of earrings called “New identifications”. My personal connection with that work is simple. In the city IJmuiden where I was born all the men wear these earrings. These 18kt earrings will cover the costs for the funeral when fishermen die in a storm out in the open sea.

Ted Noten his series have new images/symbols from the 21^st century as Ipod’s, windmills, skateboards and so on.