ART-PRESENTATION: Hella Jongerius-Woven Cosmos

Hella Jongerius is one of the world’s leading designers, known for her research-driven approach and vigorous work on uniting craftsmanship and industrial production, infusing mass produced objects with imperfection, sensibility and character. She founded her Jongeriuslab design studio in 1993, and has worked on commissioned projects for Vitra, Maharam, the interior design of the Delegates’ Lounge of the United Nations Headquarters and the cabin interiors for the Dutch airline KLM.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Gropius Bau Archive

Over three decades, the artist and industrial designer Hella Jongerius has engaged with urgent topics such as sustainable innovation, responsible production and societal regeneration. With the solo exhibition “Woven Cosmos”, Hella Jongerius presents to a broad public this unique and path-breaking figure from the realm of design and applied arts. Often focussing on the cultural, economic, technical and philosophical aspects of textiles and weaving, Jongerius’s installations emphasize open-ended process over fixed result. Arising from a durational engagement with the Gropius Bau space that began in autumn 2020, Woven Cosmos shows new works and a user-activated installation that will develop over the course of the solo exhibition. At the heart of Jongerius’s work is the link between craft and industry, as well as the reparative potential of making. Her research into ancient cultural technologies such as weaving offers much-needed perspectives on prescient questions of responsibility and sustainability. Informed by twenty-five years of work with textile, the exhibition is rooted in Jongerius’s original philosophy spanning design, sustainability and spiritualism. Through her open-ended on-site research Jongerius asks us to reconsider how we relate to the objects, our world and one another. “Woven Cosmos” is the result of collaborative research with the Berlin-based Jongeriuslab design team. Jongerius is developing a number of installations that fill the rooms of the muxeum, including a loom for three-dimensional weaving, a synergetic method for spinning yarn and woven structures proposed as architectural elements. Jongeriuslab will be working in the exhibition spaces every day.

Seamless Loom: According to the basic principle of weaving, a system of threads of warp and weft which cross each other at right angles, Seamless Loom researches the possibilities of 3D weaving. Thus this weaving machine, designed at JongeriusLab, is composed of four looms cut and joined together to form a new machine to weave real three-dimensional woven textile “bricks”. Seamless Loom will be in constant operation, producing one, possibly two bricks per day. This continuous production mirrors the dynamic of industrial manufacturing but has the possibility to adapt production at any time, while producing. Then the bricks are combined into a wall of flexible architecture. Seamless Loom also questions our living environment. As plastic poses more and more ecological problems, industrials are now addressing the issue of industrial production of 3D textiles to replace it, fabric being a light, strong and sustainable alternative. If three-dimensional shapes were woven for the interior, what tactile quality could this add to our home ?

After graduating from Eindhoven Design Academy in 1993, Hella Jongerius founded the Jongeriuslab studio, where she has pursued independent projects and also created products for major clients, including Maharam (New York), KLM, Kvadrat rugs and Royal Tichelaar Makkum (Netherlands), Ikea (Sweden) and Vitra (Basel). She has been the Art Director for colours and materials at Vitra for many years. Hella Jongerius leads on the same front fundamental research and industrial developments. A little more than two years ago, she wrote with Louise Schouwenberg a manifesto entitled “Beyond the New” which conspired frenetic desire for novelty in production, highlighting the need for common reference to fragile know-how, in ethical and societal considerations. This text but also the entire career of Hella Jongerius has a considerable influence on younger generations of creators.

Photo: Hella Jongerius, Woven Cosmos – Weaving, 2020, © Hella Jongerius, Courtesy Jongeriuslab, Photo: Jongeriuslab

Info: Curator: Stephanie Rosenthal with Clara Meister, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Niederkirchnerstraße 7, Berlin, Duration 24/4-25/8/2021, Days & Hours: Wed-Mon 10:00-19;00, www.gropiusbau.de