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Designs for our times

By Jonathan Openshaw 29 : 03 : 2016 Anton Alvarez : Autogenic : Thread Wrapping Machine

UK – A new exhibition from designer Anton Alvarez brings consumers into the making process and challenges design orthodoxy.

The Royal College of Art graduate examines the tension between craft and technology by creating systems of production that feature mechanical elements
Using low-tech industrial extruders, Alvarez creates a series of ceramic vessels that are guided but not controlled by the designer

Alphabet Aerobics by Anton Alvarez at the National Centre for Craft and Design, UK

This year is already going down as the year that art and design got active. The Art Gym from Turner Prize-winning architecture collective Assemble encourages participants to reverse the power hierarchies normally present in galleries and take things into their own hands.

A new exhibition from Anton Alvarez at the National Centre for Craft and Design also presents design as a participatory process rather than closed system. Alvarez is best known for his thread-wrapping machine, which he presented at Design Miami/Basel 2013.

Alphabet Aerobics looks more like a production line than an exhibition show and challenges the definition of maker, curator and viewer. The result is an autogenic exhibition space that is constantly in the process of making itself.