piknik works’ live performative exhibition illustrates conversations about time
piknik works at jerusalem design week 2022
During Jerusalem Design Week 2022, Istanbul-based design collective Piknik Works took over the Hansen House Center for Design to carry out a performative exhibition that plays with the boundaries of physical and mental experiences in relation to our homes. Their new project, Piknik Salon, aims to discuss the storytelling potential of design and bring together the performative act of drawing and visual storytelling in order to animate a transformation in spatiality. Performing in real-time for their exhibit, the group carried out a series of discussions alongside visitors via round table talks and illustrated these conversations on blank canvas of the furniture in their signature electric blue style.
the exhibition was performed at Jerusalem Design Week 2022
all images courtesy of Piknik Works
illustrating conversations in electric blue
On June 23 2022, the eleventh edition of Jerusalem Design Week welcomed over 40,000 visitors for the showcase of many eclectic exhibitions, installations and projects. The work centered around the theme ‘For Now’, exploring both the ephemerality of design and the design of ephemerality, examining ways in which time can be harnessed to bring about a positive effect in periods of uncertainty. Among the participants was Istanbul-based design collective Piknik Works, whose works aim to experiment with the boundaries of art, architecture and graphic fields.
For their Salon Works performance, the Turkish designers experimented with a ‘Salon’ dining room setup to discuss the storytelling potential of design. Piknik Works initially designed and prepared the room as a blank canvas with white painted furniture. They then invited visitors to join them at the table, and engage in both spontaneous and planned conversations centred around the topics of time and 21st-century culture, which were simultaneously inscribed on the surfaces in electric blue words and illustrations. Over the course of the seven day festival, the table and its surroundings were gradually filled up with stories, statements, questions and drawings in free-structured representations of the intuitive conversations.
Reflecting on the time spent at Jerusalem Design Week, Piknik designer and curator Melodi Gülbaba observes: ‘We’ve had a wonderful and intellectually nutritious experience in the creative atmosphere of JDW. We worked every day to create our fourth Performative Drawing project, an experimental process that discusses the storytelling potential of spatiality by directly drawing the narrative onto it.’
the illustrations occurred spontaneously and intuitively
visitors were invited to the dining table to converse with the designers
