6th April 2016

Inside Wood: Designing from Nature

'An oak tree grows for 300 years, lives for 300 years and takes 300 years to die. This is a timescale that is alien to today's production and consumption society.'

– Professor Petter Bergerud, Bergen Academy of Art and Design

On 12–17 April, as Milan becomes the creative centre point of the world for its Design Week, 18 of Western Norway’s preeminent established designers and architects – along with 20 BA students from Bergen Academy of Art and Design (KHiB) – will transform part of Ventura Lambrate into a five-day celebration of a single material: wood.

As the call for sustainable material solutions grown ever louder and the environmental impact of manufacturing ever more urgent a concern, renewable materials such as wood are back in the spotlight. As an organic substance, with roots (literally) in the natural world, wood has a richer narrative history than the synthetic materials that have come to dominate the current age of consumption. It is an anchor to nature; every wooden object carries with it the suggestion of the tree and thence the forest from which it came.

In Bergen and throughout Western Norway, timber has been an essential building material for millennia, and the use of wood has become a visual hallmark of Norwegian design. KHiB’s new exhibition, Inside Wood, has been conceived as a means of exploring the rich history of the material, its special significance to Norway, its contemporary applications and its role in the future of global design. Taking the manifold qualities and inherent possibilities of wood as its point of departure, Inside Wood promises to push the boundaries of wood’s role in creating furniture, interior architecture, spatial design and visual communication.

Through a series of interdisciplinary experiments conducted in collaboration between Bergen Academy students, staff and alumni, Inside Wood aims to challenge conventional expectations of the form and function of wood and its structural and spatial applications in the modern world.

To reflect the fact that the story of a wooden object doesn’t begin with its making, Inside Wood also turns its lens on the timber and forestry industries, delving into the transformation of tree to wood and considering its socio-cultural and economic impact of that journey. Rather than simply presenting a series of finished wooden products, the exhibition juxtaposes prototypes, processes, experimental techniques and material innovations with commercially produced design pieces to create a multifaceted celebration of the material. It examines the part wood plays in the sensory experience of a space, reveals the varying properties of different woods and considers their functional properties in terms of acoustics, tactility, vibrations, taste, smell, response to heat and weathering.

From woven plant fibre structures to bio-resins and lignin-based alternatives to plastic (aka ‘liquid wood’), the exhibits explore new material applications and creative expressions, alongside showcasing the beautiful and inventive ways in which Norway’s current crop of designers are using wood in their work.

Above all else, Inside Wood offers the design world a unique insight into the innovations that will turn a material as old as civilisation into one that will improve the world of tomorrow.

Designers

• Eli-Kirstin Eide •  Åse Huus  • Torkell Bernsen • Odd Torleiv Furnes • Steinar Hindenes • Anders Berg • Petter Knudsen • Frode Myhr • Petter Bergerud •  Dave Vikøren  • Lars Tornøe •  Hans Wilhelm Grieg Teisner • Lars Olav Dybdal • Jonas Benedikt Evensen • Stine Knudsen Aas • Sverre Uhnger •  Siren Elise Wilhelmsen • Lars Beller Fjetland

Students

• Astrid Emmerhoff Lothe • Lena Mari S Kolås •  Tora Schei Rørvik •  Vilde Sæternes Johannesen • Madeleine Mikkelsen • Ole Henrik Sletten Løvøy • Lea Nagelstad Sangholt • Elisabeth Frafjord Solberg • Kamilla Stokkevåg • Camilla Figureira • Tatjana Kujala  • Frid Smelvær Høgelid • Sølve Westli •  Jennifer Cena  • Thomas R Sivertsen • Iselin Dubland Lindmark • Sandra Isabell Aasen • Lasse Torsson Husabø • Vilde Øritsland Houge • Tuva Rivedal Tjugen

Date | 12–17 April

Venue | Studio Ventura, Via Ventura 5, Lambrate, Milan

Opening hours | Tues - Sat 10.00 - 20:00, Sun 10.00 - 18.00

About Bergen Academy of Art and Design

Based in Norway’s unofficial capital of design, the Bergen Academy (KhiB), is one of the country’s most respected higher-education institutions, admired internationally for producing generation after generation of the nation’s most accomplished designers and artists. The Academy is known for its interdisciplinary approach, design-as-solution methodology and pronounced emphasis on the importance of research and collaboration.

www.khib.no

@KHiBergen

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