POLISH Job at Design Week in Milan

From the 8th until the 13th of April 2014, Polish design will be presented as part of the current Salone Internationale de Mobile in Milan, one of the world’s leading events devoted to industrial design. Polish design is on display under the titlte POLISH JOB, and it’s presented at the Ventura Lambrate fair.
POLISH JOB aims at acquainting an international audience with contemporary Polish industrial design, based on local tradition, filled with respect for the past, and yet bravely looking onto the future and employing innovative solutions.

The items on display can be divided into three complementary tendencies. The first one is LOCALITY. It encompasses a collection of projects that have stemmed from local traditions, and employed materials such as linen, wood, coal, as well as traditional technologies and forms. The second one is labeled NOSTALGIA, with items that draw witty inspiration from the socialist realism era, drawing elements of an old culture into an intelligent dialogue with the past. The third tendency is INNOVATION, and it displays various solutions that follow newest technologies and leading world trends.

The first two currents draw on history and the past in an attempt to grasp what is distinct and particular about Polish design. The third one inscribes Polish design in the international context of innovation and new technological possibilities. It reveals a fascinating domain of research and experiment in which Polish designers touch upon the same problems and use the same language as some of the best designers in the world.

The POLISH JOB exhibition is accompanied by workshops, enabling the viewers to print out 3D miniature versions of selected projects on display. The Milan exhibition has been powered by culture.pl, an Internet portal which has been showing the best of Polish culture to the world for over a decade. The POLISH JOB exhibition presented as part of the Salone Internationale del Mobile forms part of the continued efforts undertaken to promote Polish design over the past years. The concept of this exhibition was selected by an international jury which included Zuzanna Skalska, Will Sorrell and Michał Stefanowski in a competition organised by the Adam Mickieiwcz Institute in January, 2013.