Netherlands partner country
The
Netherlands’ strong presence at the Mumbai design conference is a direct result
of the relationship that developed throughout the past years between BNO, Association of Dutch Designers,
and Kyoorius Exchange, organizer of
Designyatra. Earlier this year at the Pune Design Festival, BNO and Kyoorius
co-ordinated the signing of MoU’s for partnerships between Indian and Dutch
design offices, in the presence of Dutch Minister for Foreign Trade Frank
Heemskerk.
According
to Kyoorius, the independence, experiment, austerity and practicality of Dutch
Design underline the theme of Designyatra 2009: The New Norm, to encourage thinking beyond the conventional. On the
initiative of Designyatra, Dutch design institutes and agencies will visit
Mumbai to strengthen the exchange between India and the Netherlands within the
creative disciplines of design, fashion and architecture on a long-term basis.
Rajesh
Kejriwal, director of Kyoorius explains: "Indians are very creative but
design has not yet evolved, mainly because the corporate world has just about
started believing in design as a strategic tool in business. An Indian-Dutch
collaboration works well because the Dutch bring in their wealth of knowledge
and expertise while Indian studios can fast forward their learning curve on
conceptual design thinking, implementation and design management."
Dutch Design Delegation
Fourteen Dutch design agencies will travel to Mumbai to establish collaborations with partners in India. They will give lectures, participate in matchmaking sessions and visit Indian agencies. This trade mission, under the name of Dutch Design Delegation, is organised by BNO Association of Dutch Designers and includes designers such as Lava (communication design), Koeweiden Postma (communication design), De Designpolitie (communication design), Peter Boelsma/IDIS (recruitment designers), NPK Design (industrial design) and VenhoevenCS (architecture).
'Meet the Dutch' at Designyatra
The
presence of the Dutch Design Delegation at Designyatra 2009 will be enhanced by
a series of additional activities developed with the context of the Dutch Design Fashion Architecture
(DutchDFA) programme, of which India is one of the focus countries.
For
its fourth edition Designyatra has added the field of architecture to the
conference programme, including Dutch speakers such as Jacob van Rijs of MVRDV
and Ole Bouman, director of NAI, the Netherlands Architecture Institute.
Besides this, Bouman has acted as chief editor for a ‘Netherlands special’ issue of Indian magazine ‘Architecture and
Design’ that will be presented at the conference.
The
city of Eindhoven presents the most recent edition of the Dutch Design Awards, showing the work of over 70 finalists in a
collective exhibition. The awards are granted annually in the categories of
communication, product and spatial design. Thus the presentation presents an
insight into the broad range of Dutch design.
Designyatra
is also the location for the premiere of the first series of Dutch Profiles: short documentaries
about architects, graphic, product and fashion designers in the Netherlands,
commissioned by DutchDFA. Dutch Profiles focuses on the conceptual,
context-oriented and research-based practice of Dutch designers and includes
interviews with some of the designers present at Designyatra.
The
workshop ‘Cultural Differences
between Dutch and Indian Designers, impacting business practices’, led by Frits
Lintmeijer and Willem Woudenberg (Edenspiekermann), will investigate
differences and points in common in the design practice of Indian and Dutch designers.
Design Dialogues - Mumbai Edition has been conceived as the launching
platform for a four-year dialogue and collaboration on urgent issues in
both societies between designers from India and the Netherlands. These
small-scale meetings between key figures in Indian and Dutch design communities
aim to define the common agenda for further dialogue, research and projects in
the coming years.
The
‘Meet the Dutch’ leaflet shows the complete programme of Dutch activities.