ICCSD has launched the 8th edition of the "Creativity Promotes Sustainable Development" Series Exhibition, which is entitled "House of BMW: Tales from a Neo Collective Future", presenting examples of art design in the future world during Milan Design Week 2022.

The Exhibition Site

The United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development in 2015 adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), calling on all countries to take action to protect the planet and achieve sustainable development for all. The exhibition "House of BMW: Tales from a Neo Collective Future" during Milan Design Week 2022 offered artistic interpretation of SDG 12 "Responsible Consumption and Production" and SDG 13 "Climate Action".

A Projection of Human Life Formed by Simulated Resin Materials

"Tales from a Neo Collective Future" saw artists Botter, Claudia Rafael and Anna Deller-Yee reflect the zeitgeist. They addressed the opportunities and challenges of technological developments by interpreting digitization and circularity strategies. Anna Deller-Yee combined painting and embroidery art forms to create works with the element of rain, revealing the world's climate issues and showing viewers the value of life on Earth. Moreover, people were expected to raise their awareness and take urgent action to address climate change and its impacts.

The Combination of Painting and Embroidery Features Man and Nature

Mike Meiré's installation "Lab to Market" featured the bustling chaos of a market, with all its flavors and aromas, and the artificial technological order of the laboratory, exploring the future work and lifestyle of human beings. All the chairs on display in the exhibition were made of new eco-friendly materials. On the basis of their practical use, industrial products were designed to strike a balance between simplicity and beauty. Moreover, different art forms were adopted to implement the concept of sustainable consumption and production.

Light Chairs Made of Eco-Friendly Materials

Mike Meiré and four other artists presented a series of creative works at the exhibition, including installations and experimental artistic spaces. The audiences would feel the artists' unique perspective on the interpretation of this art theme and their unique works through audio and visual mediums. Dialogues between people, art and technology were launched to help viewers understand connectedness, digitalization and circularity.

The Milan Design Week 2022 in Italy, held from June 7 to 12, is an annual design event in Milan and one of the most important design gatherings in the world. The whole city would be immersed in the atmosphere of the event, and people would be able to interact with the design exhibitions wherever they went.

Introduction to the Participating Artists

MIKE MEIRÉ

In the mid-1980s, Mike Meiré and his brother Marc founded the design agency Meiré und Meiré, working for German and international brands and magazines at the nexus of culture and design. In 2001, they set up their own cultural production company, NEO NOTO, to promote collaboration between artists and companies. Mike Meiré blurs the boundaries between disciplines, constantly switching between his roles as art and brand director, designer, curator and artist. For his interdisciplinary work, he has won numerous awards over the years, including the Visual Leader of the Year Award in 2006. In 2015, he became an honorary member of the Deutscher Designer Club (DDC) in recognition of his life's work.

BOTTER

Lisi Herrebrugh and Rushemy Botter are the design team behind BOTTER. Their creative vision is an extension of their own personalities: bold, colorful and refreshingly positive. BOTTER's identity combines its "Caribbean Couture" spirit, as well as its glance towards Arte Povera's philosophy, together with a strong sustainability consciousness. As a brand whose DNA directly rises from one of the world's most biologically diverse marine regions, BOTTER does not bear to witness the pollution of the ocean, setting targets to embrace and preserve nature in all its forms. 

CLAUDIA RAFAEL

Claudia Rafael is a Berlin-based digital artist and art director. Her work focuses on issues of technology, extended and mixed realities. She is interested in investigating "how digitalism forms new aesthetics related to nature, art and popular culture". She advocates an emancipatory use of digital tools like AR that can transcend prevailing social norms on beauty through offering alternative possibilities of (self) imagination to everyone — not only for the virtual but ultimately in the physical world.

MICHELLE ELIE

Michelle Elie, an American-Haitian born designer, lived in New York until 2000. After graduating from New York University, she worked as a model for ten years.

Michelle Elie has worked as a fashion stylist and freelancer for several fashion magazines, incorporating multicultural influences into her creations. In 2010, she founded the accessories brand PRIM, whose collections are mostly handmade by artisans using locally specific techniques.

ANNA DELLER-YEE

Born in Chicago, Anna Deller-Yee graduated from the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London and the Royal College of Art. She has worked for Alexander McQueen, Hugo Boss and other fashion houses. In her works, the young artist explores existential themes such as the human body, space and time and their impacts on our society's behavioral patterns, sensory properties, rules and norms. Whether it's textile work, delicate paper sketches or large canvases, she often blurs boundaries, allowing contrast and collision of subjects, materials and colors to blend together.

"Creativity Promotes Sustainable Development" Series Exhibition

As an open and inclusive international exchange and exhibition platform, ICCSD regularly sets up a series of exhibitions centered on "Creativity Promotes Sustainable Development", which are open to the public. So far, it has held eight editions, namely Yunnan Dulong Cultural Integration Project Exhibition, Baima Huatian Rural Cultural and Creative Project Exhibition, Charitable Art Exhibition, "2030 My Hometown" Painting Collection and Exhibition, Exhibition for China ECO Design Award 2021, the 2021 "Design Day Marathon" Works Exhibition, Intangible Cultural Heritage and Sustainable Development Case Exhibition, and this exhibition.

ICCSD is dedicated to promoting diverse approaches to cultural and creative development, raising awareness among stakeholders at all levels of the relationship between culture, creativity and sustainable development, as well as human well-being and social cohesion, and sharing experiences on different approaches.

lifang@unesco-iccsd.com

Please send your plans to lifang@unesco-iccsd.com if you want to participate in the exhibition series.