It's Our F***ing Backyard

Clockwise: work from Ineke Hans/Circuform, Simón Ballen Botero, Marjan van Aubel, Diana Scherer, Audrey Large, Space Available X Peggy Gou (extended caption below)

Opening today, Stedelijk makes us more aware of our footprint with its latest exhibition It's Our F***ing Backyard. Showcasing eighty projects by designers and companies, the works highlight one of the greatest crisis of our time, climate change and touches on the exhaustion of soil and its relation to practices of colonialism, which is still used by multinationals today.

Design studio Bentu produces furniture made from ceramic waste. Tamara Orjola manufactures textiles made from pine needles. Basse Stittgen has designed tableware made of cow’s blood. Claudy Jongstra introduced medieval natural dyes to Viktor & Rolf’s fashion designs, whereas Seok-hyeon Yoon used the traditional ottchill lacquer technique to create recyclable ceramics. Maartje Dros and Erik Klarenbeek experiment with diatoms (micro-algae), which bind CO2, to make glass. With the use of innovative materials, recycling, experimental research and adaptations to ancient craft techniques, the exhibition shows products already on the market, as well as prototypes, including work from Fernando Laposse, FormaFantasma, Christien Meindertsma, Shahar Livne, Donghoon Sohn, Alexandra Kehayoglou, and manufacturers like Vitra and Ikea.

Exhibition curators Amanda Pinatih, design curator, and Ingeborg de Roode, industrial design curator say “This exhibition shows how, through creative practices, makers and manufacturers can provide a host of new possibilities, and how consumers can play their part through the choices they make. Climate change concerns us all — it’s happening in own backyard.”

The exhibition is on view until September 4th at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.