Showcasing its young designers' ideas, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago is planning multiple exhibitions during the week of Salone del Mobile 2009.
In conjunction with its SaloneSatellite exhibition, "Objects for the Age of Obama: New Objects Inspired by Change, Hope, Challenge and Allure," SAIC's second in three years, the School will be presenting two complimentary exhibitions - the only American school to do so.
These include a series of projects developed with designer Jonathan Olivares and Danese, exhibited at the Danese showroom - The Expanding Classroom: New Ways to Live and Learn, and a series of speculative projects developed in the School's Motorola funded GFRY Design Studio, titled 2000 Watt Living: New Ways to Conserve and Generate Energy, developed to promote responsible energy usage.
Objects for the Age of Obama
New Objects Inspired by Change, Hope, Challenge, and Allure
SaloneSatellite (Booth D42, Fieramilano, Rho-Pero)
From President Obama's hometown of Chicago, SAIC students explore and re-imagine everyday objects, adding a measure of "Obama-ness." Students take on the ordinary, but in extra-ordinary ways, through the examination of the United States' contemporary domestic milieu and our place within international affairs. The resulting objects envision the quotidian though the lens of the Obama promise and its problems.
The Expanding Classroom
New Ways to Live and Learn, in Collaboration with Designer Jonathan Olivares and Danese Milano
Danese Milano (Via Canova 34)
Students from SAIC, in collaboration with Danese Milano and American designer Jonathan Olivares, examined contemporary behaviors and contexts of education, study, and learning. The resulting objects, designed with an eye toward commercialization, reflect our new ways of working and challenge existing typologies of furniture and accessories.
2000 Watt Living
New Ways to Conserve and Generate Energy
Fabbrica del Vapore (Palazzina Liberty, via Procaccini, 4)
With the election of Barack Obama the United States has given the world notice that it can re-invent itself in the face of unprecedented challenges. Record un-employment and the collapse of its Industrial and financial base, compounded by its dependence on oil, have pushed the United States and its citizen designers to search for new solutions. Their desire to create and harvest new sources of locally generated energy in radically re-designed cities, and their resolve to personally spend less energy, have given shape to the projects of the 2008-09 GFRY studio at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.