art
Architecture – Design
Flexibility
Ex-Carceri, “Le Nuove”
from 26.06.2008 to 12.10.2008
The exhibition “Flexibility - design in a fast-changing society” poses questions about bonds between flexibility and design, where flexibility is intended as the ease with which a system or components of it can be modified and adapted for use in different applications or settings to the ones for which they were originally designed. A narrative and experiential path explores the diverse ways of designing the world and society starting from a concept of adaptability, from the perspective of transforming town and city environments into more elastic places, durable but also welcoming and changeable spaces. At the “Ex-Carceri, Le Nuove” former prison, the show stretches out along the corridors flanked by the cells, creating a route in three stages, with the sound track from the musical research of three sound designers. The effect is strident and of great impact: the defence of flexibility and the constriction of the place interact, giving life to a particular conceptual oxymoron. In the circular space of the panopticum, from which the prison wings reach out, the exhibition introduces visitors to the multitude of meanings attributed to the concept of flexibility. After this, in the men's wing, examples are proposed of effective design objects and solutions in terms of adaptability and versatility and that can be applied in our houses, workplaces and cities. At the end, the exhibition route finishes in the women's wing where ten installations created specially by ten rising designers on the international stage are on show. A multi-faceted voyage proposes and supports flexibility as a design approach, as well as a process to learn and practise so as to exploit unpredictable opportunities and refine the capacity for individual adaptation, and therefore survival. A workshop and a debate enrich the exhibition: a workshop conducted by the designers invited to the exhibition to foster discussion and debate questions posed by “Flexibility – Design in a Fast-Changing Society”, where students and professionals have the chance to participate, divided in two different sessions, and to explore design processes applied to Torino; (26/27 giugno) a debate open to the general public to analyse and discuss some of the projects developed by the designers for the exhibition as well as some specific aspects of Flexibility. The debate is chaired by the curator of the exhibition and by Alice Rawsthorn, Design Critic of the International Herald Tribune.
