Monday, June 23, 2008
Slow food >> Slow design
Without admitting that I have a problem, I will say that I was watching back episodes of Charlie Rose again. I can admit; however, that I find the occasional confluence of events to be very interesting. Today's coincidence comes to us by way of Charlie Rose's interview with Paola Antonelli, design curator of the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition at MOMA, and Kathryn's recent trip to Blue Hill at Stone Barns. The former being what I was re-watching as Kathryn called to tell me about the latter.
Slow prototyping: Honeycomb vase by Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny
Now, the correlation between these two events may seem quite disparate from outside of the situation; the topics of international, contemporary/future design and local, organic farming & food seem to exist in realms that do not overlap. In many respects they do not overlap and relate to each other, but there are a few themes that seem to have deeper correlations.
One such correlation is time and emotion; how we measure and perceive them and what they effect and change. Despite their inherit divergences, Design for the Elastic Mind and Blue Hill at Stone Barns share similar concepts of time and emotion; especially as each accepts the concept of slowness. To be quite heavy handed, Blue Hill at Stone Barns is one of the world's greatest examples of slow food and perhaps the Elastic Mind exhibition was America's introduction to slow design.
During the interview with Charlie Rose, Ms. Antonelli describes the benefit of a slow design process. Recognizing the many qualities of the slow food movement and recent advancements/acknowledgements of slow tourism (or eco-tourism) and slow medicine, it is only logical that healthful, sustainable design is not something that may be developed by way of the design processes that we have accepted. While a large portion of the world is now living and working according to the accepted processes, a growing world trend recognizes and strives to accomplish the opposite; slowness.
Ms. Antonelli describes slowness as "taking it easy" or "remembrance" while only hinting at the true nature of the slowness movement which is the evocation of pleasant emotions. There may be many benefits outside of the emotional response, but it is the quality that remains intact throughout all strains of the slowness movement. These emotions may be called out by the simplicity/complexity of the products, their adherence to a natural order or even one's own memories. Whatever the source of these emotions, the goals of slow food and slow design intersect at your happiness. A happiness that cannot deny fresh, organic produce nor perception of a perfect design.
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