Andréhn-Schiptjenko Coulisse Gallery Gunia Nowik Gallery Piktogram Tabula Rasa Gallery

Galleries

Aaajiao, Hanna Antonsson, Agata Bogacka, Jennifer Carvalho, Aisha Christison, Christofer Degrér, Hannes Ferm, Xiao Hanqiu, Gustaf Helsing, Johannes Högbom, iida jonsson & ssi saarinen, Annie Andersson & Villiam Törngren González, Julia Kowalska, Caroline Nord, Jonatan Pihlgren, Daisy Parris, Nils Alix-Tabeling, Yngvild Saeter, Matti Sumari, Iza Tarasewicz, Paweł Olszewski, Tant Yunshu Zhong

Artists

Space

Location

We developed the visual identity and printed materials for the collaborative exhibition „Contemporary Myths & Artifacts“ in partnership with DOUBBLE. Held at Torsgatan 22, Gamla Gasverket, Stockholm, the exhibition featured a variety of artworks by different artists.

Our design approach, highlighted by Extraset’s elegant ES Face typeface, seamlessly complemented the artwork on display. Each piece was carefully curated to create a cohesive narrative that captivated visitors.

Contemporary Myths & Artifacts

Viaduktbogen 42, An der Michaelbrücke 1, Berlin

We present our visual identity for Office ParkScheerbarth's pop-up exhibition "Out of Proportion", which celebrates five years of collaboration with Holzmarkt 25 and the Holcim Foundation. The exhibition takes place in a historic railway arch, once the studio of artist Volker Bartsch, and retains traces of his work. Our design integrates seamlessly into this space, using wooden panels stained in the visual identity's signature green as canvases for project descriptions and exhibition text. The key visual features the F37 Sonic typeface, contributing to a cohesive aesthetic. The exhibition celebrates the intersection of architecture, urbanism and art, reflecting both historical context and contemporary design principles.

Out of Proportion

museum's management

The third program broshure for the Henry Dunant Museum in Heiden, Switzerland includes information regarding all events happening despite the ongoing renovations at the museum. For the varied program the museum opens its door partially and enjoys guest rights at Kursaal Heiden. The cover illustrates another of Dunant's quotes and the basis for the red cross: Help without asking who you are helping.

Henry Dunant Museum Program 2023

For the redesign of the website and businesscards we first designed for Zurich and Verduno based artist Carlos Matter in 2016 we introduced a new color that stands out from the artist's earthy color palette. The line - a recurring element that runs through Carlos' work - is incorporated in the initial animation to guide the viewer into his extensive collection of works. Carlos Matter (*1951) is dedicated to the processual art production. Diverse structures, generated by different materials and techniques, are part of his oeuvre.

Carlos Matter Rebrand

Web Developmnent

We recently worked with independent architecture firm Studio Strassburg to create a dynamic and immersive website. This platform invites users on an exploratory journey, allowing layers of information to be built upon its blueprint-like foundation. Through a rich combination of images and video, the site not only showcases completed architectural projects, but also meticulously documents the process behind them. This approach provides visitors with a comprehensive understanding of the studio’s commitment to materials, sustainability, and aesthetics. 

In addition to the website, we developed a distinctive visual identity for Studio Strassburg. This branding project reflects the studio’s focus on materiality, sustainability, and aesthetics. As part of this visual identity, we produced a series of business cards printed in our screen-printing studio using Extraset’s elegant Klarheit Grotesk typeface. These business cards exemplify the studio’s commitment to quality and thoughtful design. 

Studio Strassburg

We completed a branding project for Ratzfatz, creating a colorful identity and playful packaging for their healthy, organic frozen children's meals. The packaging features fun names like Spinudeln, Fussilifest, Konfetti Reis Körri, and Suppenfatz, all approved by the youngest members of our team.

As part of the branding, we designed a custom font, FriesBeta, with playful glyphs and ligatures that interact with simple line illustrations and bold colors. This summer, Ratzfatz launched its online store, offering a range of meals for children as young as 1. The project was a collaboration with Alessia Meyer.

Ratzfatz

We designed a 50-meter long banner for the exhibition "Leben mit Luise," displayed at Vattenfall Wärme Berlin AG, Platz Was! Stadtgarten (Heizkraftwerk Mitte), Köpenicker Str. 60, 10179 Berlin. This exhibition celebrated the 12th anniversary of the Nördliche Luisenstadt redevelopment area.

The banner, displayed along the Vattenfall "Pflanz was!" fence, featured a collection of fitting verbs added to the title "Leben mit Luise," creating a long sentence that could be read from afar. Bold colors highlighted the area’s involvement in the neighborhood, catching the attention of pedestrians, cars, and bikes passing by.

The project was initiated by @ba_mitte_berlin and developed collectively with @nklssndrs. The exhibition concept and graphic design were created by Burrow, Berlin, with text by Ramona Tucholski and Birgit Kahl. Photography was provided by Christoph Eckelt (bildmitte.de) and others, with the font Mint Grotesk Display by @lifttype.

Luisenstadt-Zaunausstellung

Typetool

Text by

We designed a poster for the upcoming group exhibition OFF GRID hosted at Material in Zürich

The exhibition was showing the works of Noel Hochuli, Giorgo Zenograf, Leandra Agazzi and Massimilliano Rossetto .

Off Grid

Print 

Cover 

The publication Geopolitics is part of a exhibition identity for the exhibition series of the same name. The project initiated by curator Chun-chi Wang (IDOLONSTUDIO) is conducted within the field of art; producing and presenting artworks related to and investigating geopolitical borders. 

The multisciptual publication reads from both sides and includes a series of texts in Arabic and English. The offset printing on the inside pages was done on one paper type; the white side with four colors (CMYK) for the imagery and the green side with black (K) for the texts. The magenta elastic band holding it all together can be shifted from left to right changing languages and starting points. Therefore the publication has two covers, one English and one Arabic one. The green finish on the cover is hand silkscreen printed  in our own workshop and references the layout of the artwork shown inside. 

The first exhibition was shown In Al Madina Theater, Beirut, Lebanon during November 29–Dec 19, 2021. The exhibition project is part of the larger series „Contemporary Art from Taiwan—Exhibitions, Screenings, Publications“, in which three artists were invited: CHEN Shiau-Peng, TING Chaong-Wen and LIU Ho-Jang. The presented artworks deal with geopolitics and broader questions of aesthetics and politics. We were invited 

Geopolitics

Copy Editing

Audio Samples

Web Development

For the release of the F37Sonic typeface by F37Foundry we conceptualised and developed a playful mini-site to present the new typeface. The website features animations with variable type, showcases alternative styles, has a little drum computer  and many other little details to discover.

F37 Sonic

Kaba Rössler & Nadine Schneider (General management Dunant Museum)

Idea & Project Lead

Research & exhibition curation

Fabian Troxler & Stefan Friedli, Szenenwerk

Exhibition Construction

Print Flyer

Exhibition fotos

Dunant Plaza as part of Henry-Dunant-Museum

Venue

Flagge Zeigen – Red Cross on white background. The initial idea was striking. One sign marks medical posts and rescuers in war, protecting them from the fighting. A sign that everyone knows and all fighting parties use. The idea found its way into international law in 1864 and was given a shape: A red cross on a white background. But it did not remain with the one, universal protective sign, soon there were two, then three, and now multiple iterations of the initial red cross on a white background exist. The protective signs became subjects of religious and political disputes that lasted for decades. To this day, the neutrality and universal acceptance of the signs remains a vulnerable asset. Constant educational, mediating and diplomatic skills are needed worldwide to strengthen recognition of the signs of protection. After all, in war, human lives depend on them. 

The visual direction shows three different signs interweaving and merging into a new symbol. Throughout the overall exhibition identity we worked with the original red tone as a transporting color reference. Additionally it was important to work within a set of grid structuring exhibition elements. Therefore the concept of segmentation and rearranging the fragments can be seen as a superordinate design choice in every part of the project. The curators expressed the idea of recycling frame elements form a previous exhibition concept. These already existing exhibition elements functioned as a visual reference. They formed the anchor point for the idea of segmentation and reconstruction. Initially we played around with iterations of the different symbols and pasted the fragments on a grid like structure. These were the first ideas around segmenting the different elements and reconstructing them. After some playful and seemingly suprematist first drafts, we came to the conclusion that one joint symbol referencing the various political ideas would be the strongest solution for the key visual.

Flagge zeigen

Print

Berlin based artist Klaus Decker explores the marginal areas of paintings. With the choice of his picture carriers (MDF, multiplex, cardboard, laid paper, plexiglass) as well as the motivic and technical elements, he creates a specific language that transcends the limits of conventional painting and questions the traditional composition of the picture. However, there is always a precise coordination with regard to the content of the image and the size of the motif, as well as in terms of material, shape and color, in order to achieve exciting and surprising puzzle games with perception. Another essential element that shapes his art is serial thinking. In order to approach his topics, he mainly works in series of works that vary and explore formal and content-related aspects. What unites all the works despite their formal and material differences is a form of expression that makes the influence of chance and conscious artistic decisions equally tangible, and raises fundamental questions about the perception and understanding of art.

Colours of Noon / Dusk / Midnight Series

The monograph „Listen to the Space – Maps—Traces—Cosmos“ we developed with and for the artist Ulrike Flaig can be seen as an interface of art and music, showcasing the artists art practice through different media. She describes her works as making images audible and translates paintings into installations set to music. The artist's analytical view and reflection on art practices play a major role throughout the whole design of the book project. The book was published by 

 and the reproductions were done by Johann Hausstätter (hausstaetter herstellung)

With texts by Renate Wiehager, Dorothée Bauerle-Willert, Angela Lammert and Valeria Schulte-Fischedick.

Listen to the Space

On her quest to find more informations on the practice of leucotomy (a form of brain surgery on psychiatric disorder) in the Swiss institution and psychiatric clinic Königsfelden, the artist Lea Schaffner reached a dead end, as there seems to be barely any information to be found on where exactly such procedures, which very accepted and respected back then, took place. She was left with an archive full of systems of order such as categories, diagnosis, construction plans, grids and structure, but no specific data on the treatment itself, therefore the focus shifted towards the institution itself. Growing up in the clinics vicinity the artist has always been very aware of the place, which is also associated with a series of intimidating and offensive proverbs.

Aus dem kopf

Development

Peninah Amanda Styling is Berlin-based stylist and consulting studio, advising clients in fashion, image creation and creative fashion direction. Peninah’s Kenyan roots enable her to think about the world as her playground regarding the brightness of colors, the mixture of materials, and knowledge of today’s trends in fashion and pop culture. With her individual and creative styling, Peninah successfully established herself as a fashion stylist in demand for international campaign shoots, editorial, celebrity and film productions. We provided s small corporate design consisting of the website and a series of silkscreen printed business cards.

Peninah Amanda 

Website

Tools

Coulisse is an Art Gallery based in Stockholm. From the beginning the gallery’s focus was to present young, cutting-edge artists and designers, from Scandinavia and beyond. 

Alongside exhibitions Coulisse Gallery, together with collaborators, also initiates events to bring a vibrant energy to the Stockholm art scene.

Working closely with the Gallery we designed their visual identity along side with the layout and programming of their website.

The visual Identity of the website relies on the three key elements; heavy typeface, light background grid and the overlaying clip-masked images of art pieces, which provide a very different feel depending on the artists work. While the grid is structuring the pages and gives depth to the content, the heavy type in combination with the overlaying image provides it a bit of a more playful touch and creates a variation through-out different subpages. The navigation aligned on the bottom plays along with the grid and allows for a lot of headspace and flexibility for the content, while also more accessible on mobile devices. Each page type is laid out very different but are also following the rules of the three basic elements.

Coulisse Gallery

Curator

Ting Chang-Wen, Kang Ya-Chu, Chiu Chen-Hung (Installations) & Audrey Chen, Yuko Kaseki, Shingo Inao, Dominique Baron-Bonarjee (Performances)

Autors

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, R.O.C (Taiwan) Kulturabteilung der Taipeh Vertretung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, and Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei City Government

Funding

Diakonie Landgut Holzdorf, Kunstfest Weimar

Due to Covid-19 fear and anxiety still prevail and it feels difficult to take any positives from the situation. When we turn towards the concept of crises, we mean to focus on our pre-Covid understanding of it, yet reading it in the light of what we have learned and vice versa: How could we draw on our understanding of crises as a resource during the pandemic? How has our experience of lockdown and social distancing given us space to let crises be a part of our lives, and to give space to admitting needs and vulnerability? Crises are turning points in which we fully understand that things need to change, and that whether we want them to or not, they will. Our social behaviour and the balance between human and nature has been shifted due to Covid-19. Social distancing and isolation have become necessary rules; they force us to face the question of life and death. I Am here now / Ich im Hier & Jetzt is a series of initiations that invert notions of the living and the dead, the live and the inanimate, “awakening” the commemorative architecture at Diakonie Landgut Holzdorf.

I am here now

Client & Editor

Koordinationsbüro für Stadtentwicklung und Projektmanagement (Christin Noack, Hannah Münzer, Birgit Kahl, Isabelle Klein)

Research Assistance

Exhibition concept

Dr. Thomas Flierl, Kristina Laduch, Hannah Münzer, Christin Noack, Niklas Sanders (text concept), André Zschaler

Exhibition texts & Editorial

Copyediting

Bundesarchiv Berlin, bpk-Bildagentur, Akademie der Künste

Image Archive

AFF Architekten, Brandlhuber + Büros für Konstruktivismus, Brenne Architekten, Kawahara Krause Architects, mghs architekten + Rolf Mühlethaler

Architecture Studios

Print Book

The extension of Karl-Marx-Allee between Strausberger Platz and Alexanderplatz marked the turning point towards modernism in the GDR. Industrially manufactured „socialist housing“ between Mollstrasse and Holzmarktstrasse, was combined with a completely new architecture. Today, undeveloped spaces between Schillingstrasse and Alexanderplatz are evident. Six additional pavilions were initially planned by the original city plan of the 1950s, but they were never built. Under the condition of respectful treatment of the existing surroundings, the still open urban spaces are to be incorporated with pavilion buildings in a modern, contemporary architecture. The exhibition presents the pavilion history from the original planning to today's workshop-inspired public procurement process – including the designs for the six new pavilions. In the same way, the workshop-inspired process brings a past idea into the present in a contemporary way, the exhibition Re: Pavilion presents answers to an urban plan from the 1950’s.

For the graphic guidelines a systematic concept that takes up design elements of socialism has been developed. The modular system creates an appearance that provides the ability to dynamically react to the contents of the various media. Formally, the graphic design uses the title „Re: Pavilion“ and takes up the question-answer principle. The familiar form of a modern (email) communication flow, divides the chronicle between the recipient and sender (or answer and reply) on different design layers. The color concept is characterized by pluralism, the idea behind the concept was not be subjected to one single color. Hence, the representation of the restrained pastel tones in conjunction with the violet luminous spot color, invites visitors to question the relationships of the colors within themselves. By choosing the color combination accordingly – a contemporary view into the past – a response to the much used pastel tones during socialism, with a current leap into a diverse color spectrum has been undertaken. Additionally a reinterpreted version by Reto Moser and Tobias Rechtsteiner of the historical typeface design by Anatoliy Vasilyevich Shchukin from 1940-1956 has been used to transport information throughout the visuals. 

Re: Pavillon Re:Opening

Re: Pavillon

General management Dunant Museum

Webmaster

Support by

Framework

The Henry Dunant Museum is the only museum worldwide dedicated to the life and work of the visionary founder of the international Red Cross and the Geneva Conventions – Henry Dunant. Heiden was Henry Dunant's (1828-1910) home for the last 18 years of his life. This village in the Appenzell, famed for its neoclassical architecture, was an internationally renowned resort. This is where he wrote his memoirs. At 800  l, with a view onto Lake Constance and beyond the border, he developed his idea for a more peaceful world and an international court of justice. In 1901, in Heiden, he received word that he had become the first person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The museum dedicated to Dunant is located in the building in which he lived out his days as a reclusive pensioner until his death on 30 October 1910.

The new identity of the Henry Dunant Museum was conceived in 2021 and adapted to various carrier media. The museum's goal was to reposition itself in the digital space and visually repurpose its rich content. The overarching narrative links all media and areas in the context of the museum. In doing so, the work and worldviews of Henry Dunant were transferred into a visual language. Henry Dunant's large fund of content was placed in a branching network to each other. These first considerations resulted in a cosmic representation of diverse aspects in different times and spaces. The cosmos as a narrative links Dunant's work and thinking with contemporary impulses in an interplay of far-and-near. The website allows the viewer to move from one impulse to the next, becoming a never-ending process. The overarching narrative is supported by rounding off navigational elements and adding a spatial feel to design elements. In addition to the spherical representation, two typefaces were designed, revealing both a contemporary and a historical time period. The design and development of the website was the first implementation of the visual concept.

Henry Dunant Museum Website

The website playfully interacts with the concept of applying to a neutral base, much like a plain paper. The name Architecture Office, not saying much expect what they are in technical terms. The website adapts that idea by refusing to have a certain theme, instead the user can depicts his own idea of what he wants it to be. Change color or the order of the website while navigating through the projects.

Architecture Office

Curation

The virtual exhibition Redirection Berlin started with a public correspondence amongst the 10 involved artists. This correpondence is being archived on the Website. The project is leading up to a hybrid (physical/digital) exhibition, that will be held in late 2020 in different locations in Berlin. The exhibition is free for everyone who will visit the site which will be guided through the website and can be accessed on the phone. Alternatively you can order a screen print by the artist to access their piece from anywhere.

Redirection Berlin

Title

Working with the curators of the Henry-Dunant-Museum Heiden we designed a contemporary identity for the legacy of Henry Dunant in Heiden, Appenzell Ausserhoden. Along with the website we also designed the signage for Dunant Plaza, a temporary location in downtown Heiden and a series of exhibitions for various artists as well as topics evolving around Henry Dunant’s visions for a better world in terms of humanity and equality, that never came to fruition during his live time and that are still relevant, debated and fought for today.

Henry Dunant Museum

The Covid-19 pandemic has reinforced deep-seated inequalities in the world, it has exacerbated the precarious living and working conditions of so many of the global population and has made us feel fundamentally vulnerable. Under Covid-19 we have experienced intense fear and uncertainty. The exhibition Phit-Nan-So—Sutzraum explores questions such as: fear of mortality and the fragility of life, uncertainty about future challenges that we may have to face—existential forces that trigger our primal fears, cost us valuable strength and energy, and often leave us powerless and in a state of shock. Choreographer Shang-Chi Sun and visual artist Chaong-Wen Ting, both of whom live in Taipei and Berlin, address the term “home” from their own idiosyncratic perspective. They call their joint work for Kunstfest Weimar at the Bauhaus-Museum Weimar Phit-Nan-So—Schutzraum; the title refers to “place of refuge” or indeed “home”. In this installation visual arts, performance and music enter a dialogue in a very modern Bauhaus sense. The exhibition was part of Kunstfest Weimar 2020 and was held at Bauhaus-Museum Weimar.

Phit-Nan-So Schutzraum

HOU Lulu Shur-Tzy, TING Chaong-Wen, I-Hsuen CHEN

Translation

Chun-Chi WANG, HUANG Sun-Quan, JIAN Tzu-Chieh, CHANG Shih-Lun

Authors

Ministry of Culture of Taiwan Department of Cultural Affairs of Taipei City Government

Tokyo TDC (2021), TDC New York (TDC68) (series)

Awards

Contemporary Asian Photography is an exhibition series that takes a close look at contemporary culture and art practice from Asian artists’ perspectives. The exhibitions concentrate on specific pieces of history and life experiences, but also attempt to construct or discover relationships between historical contexts from varied perspectives. Specifically, they make observations either from different geographical locations synchronously, or from the same location at different times. The personal experiences and collective consciousness are linked with multiple historical trajectories charted by the vicissitudinal political and social forces. In Part III of the Crisis of Now series presents photographic works by three contemporary Taiwanese artists, Wei-Li YEH, LIU Ho-Jang and CHENG Ting-Ting, revealing their idiosyncratic personal trajectories and closely connected forms of memory. What, in previous crises, is proved helpful for us? What do we learn from the artists regarding future experiences of destabilization and vulnerability? How do we seek the support we need?

The publication includes a series of texts: “Fragments of Time: Wei-Li YEH’s Three Places, for Marguerite Duras (2003 to 2006)” by Julia Gwendolyn Schneider, “The Genealogy of Defect: LIU Ho-Jang’s B-5 Project” by Chen-Han YANG, and “An Alternative Narrative of Taiwan: Ting-Ting Cheng’s Lonely Planet Taiwan” by SHEN Bo-Wie.

Crisis of Now – Part III

Research & content curation

Exhibition construction

Administration & Coordination

Doris Baschnonga, Blanca Juon, Lea Schaffner

Communication & Education

Doris Baschnonga, Monika Fasola, Blanca Juon, Barbara Metzger

Reception

Gemeinde Heiden, Kulturförderung Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Paul Schiller Stiftung, SRK Kantonalverband beider Appenzell  

Support

Print flyer

During the long period of occupation from 1830 to 1962, Swiss trading companies and private individuals pursued economic interests. Henry Dunant (1828 - 1920) is known as the initiator of the world's largest humanitarian aid organization – the ICRC. Less known is that Dunant, at the age of 25, traveled to North Africa on behalf of the „Geneva Trading Company of the Swiss Colonies of Sétif“. It is the beginning of his activity as a colonial administrator and businessman, which shaped his later views and had a long-lasting impact on his life. Together with cultural researcher Ina Boesch, the exhibition focuses on this little-discussed phase of Dunant's life. Can Henry Dunant's colonial activities be reconciled with his philanthropic worldview?

For the exhibition design we worked closely with the curators and the exhibition constructors. The idea was to present a historical overview on three different cylinders. The concept given provided the possibility to divide the historical context into segments. In choosing fitting subtitles to represent Dunant’s engagement throughout the stages of his journey, the scenographic concept divides the timeline into three different segments: Dunant as a colonist, as a businessman and as an ethnographer. Facing a busy window front and giving the opportunity for spectators to be lured into the exhibition, a communicative layer to the outside was part of the initial design brief. Inspired by ancient maps shown in the exhibition, and further material studies by the construction team, a dotted line referencing shipping routes and indicating footpaths was chosen. In creating a fictional path, the visitors were able to peek into the cylinders and look at different historical material along the way. In the evening the inside of the cylinders were light with spotlights, illuminating Dunant’s path and highlighting the narrative visual.

Unternehmen Algerien

OVN is a small and handy outdoor equipment made of steel. The object translating to fire in Norwegian, was created by product design studio IRDEN Manufaktur and hand welded in in a neighboring workshop unit to Burrow. We created a custom geometric logotype existing of outlines, referencing stencil typefaces that have been historicallly applied to steel plates. Additionally it was important to execute a complete packaging, functioning as an easy to use instruction and conveying a complete setup for OVN. The information on the packaging was printed in our very own silkscreen workshop unit. 

Developed with

sl Collective is a Los Angeles-based architecture and design firm that translates identities and concepts into built environments. Established in 2020, sl Collective is a new model for expanded and scalable practice, formed by a group of individuals who work globally with forward-thinking clients on a wide range of projects, including buildings, interiors, industrial design, design-research consulting and ideation.

We provided the corporate design consisting of the design and development of the website. Additionally we designed and executed various printed materials – from letter heads to a series of silk-screen printed busines cards.

SL Collective

Concept

Editing

Editorial assistance

was founded in 1969, since its inception it has been a site for promoting contemporary art and discourse production. Its goal has always been to present contemporary fine arts to a wide public audience, as well as to invite everyone to participate in cultural processes and discourses. 

In 1970 the founded one of the first «artothek» in Germany, which includes over 4.000 art pieces, which can be borrowed against a small insurance fee. The second collection 

includes currently over 1.700 pieces of international video art. n.b.k. also hosting exhibitions and discourses on a regular basis and in collaboration with the publisher 

they have published more than 400 books in five series. Together with the team we worked on the modernisation of their existing website and discussed new ideas on how the comprehensive content can be translated and improved with modern web technologies. 

We worked with multiple instances of the society on their website and developed interactive filter systems, that allow users to navigate their way through the vast collections and entries.

Neuer Berliner Kunstverein Web

The Publication »The Story about Water — The Erie Canal as a Site of Untold Stories« by Linda Zhang and Biko Mandela Gray, documents and explores marginalised histories of the people the made the Erie Canal possible. The topic of water described by in their own words:

Water. It’s all about water. Water is formless form; it adheres to the container within which it finds itself. And in so doing, water aks us to think about form; the power of form and the power to deform. Water dissolves as much as it moves, fills, and gives life and such indeterminacy offers the space for a meditation on how life and lives along the Erie Canal are formed, transformed, deformed and reformed.

The Story of Water

Location 

Date 

 Info 

Architecture Office, Nicole McIntosh & Jonathan Louie Moderator David Turturo

Organizer 

Early in 2020 the Swissness Applied project was hosted at Yale University along with the Image-Architecture-Place Symposium organized by David Turturo.

Swissness Applied Yale Architecture

IDOLONSTUDIO (Union of European Asian Artists)

Client

Ministry of Foreign AffairsRepublic of China (Taiwan), Kulturabteilung der Taipeh Vertretung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland

Supported by 

Exhibition design for Taiwan Cinema Berlinale 2020. We were asked to design the exhibition stand and the identity featuring the latest work, “Days,” of director Ming Liang TSAI (蔡明亮) at the 70th Berlinale and Film Market at Martin Gropius Bau.

Taiwan Cinema Berlinale

Bridge & Vine is a small family run strategic wine consulting agency in Nappa Valley, California. The color scheme gave reference to the natural colors found around vineyards, and acted as the visual bridge between the two segments consulting and winery. We developed a custom logotype, a series of silk screen printed business cards and a landing page website.

Bridge & Vine Branding

«Swissness Applied» is part of a larger research project that focuses on the transformation of European immigrant towns in the United States. These towns share the common aspiration of preserving and perpetuating the architectural charm of their cultural heritage to enhance the social and economic base of their community. The project contributes to the ongoing discussion on the role of imagery and cultural appropriation in architecture and urban design planning.

»New Glarus«, Wisconsin is an example of one of these towns. Its’ architectural elements accessorise the building to create an attractive Swiss appearance for visitors. To curate the setting, the building codes describe typical elements of the »Swiss Chalet« style that evoke certain associations with familiar traditional Swiss building types. Resulting in an evolution of the buildings’ front from the 1960s’ onwards. »Wisconsin’s little Switzerland«, one of many themed towns in America, is the most advanced example of this generative form of urban mutation.

The Swissness Applied exhibition series looks at the American town New Glarus from an architectural perspective, as a visual example of the challenges in contemporary social transformation on a global scale. The town originally founded by Swiss immigrants in 1845, adopted the visual identity of their heritage. Later in the 1950s, under economic pressure and the need to enhance tourism, new building regulations were formed, attempting to meet a more Swiss image by „swissifing“ the house styles.

The typical light, dynamic and decorative Calligraphic blackletter fonts as you can find them on old house facades in German speaking alpine regions such as in Switzerland, South Germany and Austria have been our source of inspiration. We developed a custom blackletter typeface, which formed the main part of the visual identity. The letter forms were adjusted and made more accessible to use in a contemporary design context. Aside from communicating a sense of Swissness it was also important to provide a visual time anchor, that points at the colonial times during which the town «New Glarus» came into existence from Swiss emigrants back then.

Additionally we designed a series of print products and developed an experimental website documenting the exhibition project while also functioning as a playground for the virtual visitor to explore the exhibition in a different context.

Swissness Applied Branding

Photography

The second Exhibition of the larger Research Project Swissness Applied was held at the Kunsthaus Glarus in the Swiss Town Glarus, that was the prototype where the emigrants originated from the would later set the foundation what later became the tourist attraction New Glarus.

Swissness Applied Kunsthaus Glarus

Institutions

Editors

Text und editing

UNGER-KUNZ. Lektorat und Redaktionsbüro GbR

Reproductions, Printing and Binding

ISBN 

Publisher

Support by 

The exhibition Schlosskinder, which translates as ‘castle children,’ focuses on the neglected chapter in the history of the baroque Molsdorf Castle and its temporary use as Rosa Luxemburg, a children’s home from 1951 to 1958. The typeface developed for the exhibition, consisting of elegant strong forms, harkens to the baroque while integrating formal aspects of the children’s home. The letters in which the interior shapes are rounded and playful set a contrast to the elegant appearance of the typeface.

The exhibition graphics and publication of SCHLOSSKINDER connect the past with the present typographically. Historical imagery and facts about "Rosa Luxemburg" are shown in combination with the custom typography while the modern grotesk typeface sets a strong contrasts to the historical layer. The exhibition publication includes an interview and documentation artwork by the Mats Staub with the historic photo album showing the life of the children during the 50s at the Mosldorf Castle. 

Schlosskinder

The Exhibition Series Swissness Applied started with the first Exhibition in Milwaukee, US in 2019. A 100 miles car ride from the projects site, the projects get introduced to an academic audience.

Swissness Applied UW Milwaukee

UNO St. Claude Gallery, PhotoNOLA Festival (New Orleans, LA, USA)

Venue Support

Contemporary Asian Photography is an exhibition series that takes a close look at contemporary culture and art practice from Asian artists’ perspectives. The exhibitions concentrate on specific pieces of history and life experiences, but also attempt to construct or discover relationships between historical contexts from varied perspectives. Specifically, they make observations either from different geographical locations synchronously, or from the same location at different times. The personal experiences and collective consciousness are linked with multiple historical trajectories charted by the vicissitudinal political and social forces. In Part II of the Crisis of Now series three Taiwanese artists—I-Hsuen CHEN, HOU Lulu Shur-Tzy and TING Chaong-Wen present their contemporary photography through multi-cultural observations. 

The publication includes a series of texts: an essay written by CHANG Shih-Lunby, “Between Transparency and Blur”; HUANG Sun-Quan, “Out of Place—HOU Lulu Shur-Tzy and Her Trilogy on Kaohsiung Military Dependents’ Villages”; JIA Tzu-Chieh, “A Pleat in Tainan City Hall (Minzhi). On TING Chaong-Wen’s Photographic Works Prophet and North”.

Crisis of Now – Part II

Creative Direction

Schwerin, Görlitz, Mannheim, Bochum, Auen in Bewegung und Auf Anfang! Festival, Finsterwalde, Artlake Festival, Erfurt, Neukölln Open Festival, Reeperbahnfestival, Hamburg, Aachen, Passau, Chemnitz, Berlin