36.5 Exhibition at the Design Plaza

 

A few weeks ago, I worked as a guide at the 36.5 Art Exhibition at DDP (Dongdaemun Design Plaza) in Seoul, South Korea. The 36.5 exhibition promotes warmth and understanding among people (our body temperature being 36.5 Celcius) – this is displayed through numerous designs portraying such values.

 

Many of the designs are eco-friendly or environmentally conservative – there are designs made out of reused or recycled products. An artist fit a mirror into a reused tennis racquet. Some designers used reused buttons to create a sculpture, while others made gorgeous chandeliers out of old, rusted bicycle chains. As a guide, I explained the designs in the 36.5 exhibition to the public, conveying the message of green living and morality.

 

Today, I would like to introduce some of the design products that I came over while volunteering.

 

1. Moving of Human life – Story of human growth and life journey with various wheels

: Special controlling wheelchair – there are people who can barely move in this world. A wheelchair has been developed for those in need, using the movable mouth or chin to mobilize it. There are numerous options for people with various disabilities.

: Silver car – a roller that helps the old to move objects around. The silver car supports elders to walk.

 

2. Share beyond culture – Good stories and items that make for a change of society and coexist

: Globally expand cultural exchanges through sharing – Making, sharing, and saving helps present the expanded cases of interpreting design in various ways based on unique characteristics. The plaza displayed ?Penduka? that attempts coexistence of different societies and cultures withing Namibian traditional embroidered works. I could also see ?Vita? that shows diversity and harmony of the patterns of textiles from around the world. Cultural exchanges, moreover, included ?Giru? that leads collaboration projects with fair trade producers and designers.

 

3. Colorful Harmony – Rainbow world embroidered with colorful threads

: Cotton Yarn, Ployester Yarn, Rayon Yarn – A beautiful fabric is a product of harmonizing threads of diverse color. Each thread is gathered together to be transformed into a very colorful fabric, creating a new possibility beyong imagination. A harmony of color threads symbolizes the beautiful world when differences meet and come together.

 

4. Touchable Yearbook (Warm-hearted Technology)

: Yearbook of the Seoul National School for the Blind – Yearbook means little to some graduates – those with visual impairments. Students of a school for the blind received special yearbooks last year through the project ?Touchable Yearbook? using the 3D printing method. In 2015 the second story of touchable yearbook begins. The designers hope that this year?s graduates will also receive such yearbooks and touch the faces of their friends, making the feelings last forever.

 

5. Share for community

: Share to solve social issues, share to enhance women?s rights through crafts (education on gender equality) – The project helps recreate the production sites intended to infuse life into the lives of individuals and local communities. It aims to improve the qualirt of life based on their regional circumstances and traditional handcrafting techniques, such as the project by Saoban and Earthman. This adds the value to Laotian traditional products and KamaCraft that helps women in ten villages through hand-made crafts.