THE DESIGN MUSEUM PARTICIPATES IN PRESTIGIOUS EXHIBITION COLLABORATION

On February 22, the Dutch design museum Den Bosch, located just over an hour’s drive from Amsterdam, opened a new exhibition about the design museum of the future. Here, each of the five invited design museums shows some of the most excellent objects from their respective collections – selected objects that help tell the story of each individual museum and their extraordinary collections. It is an exhibition which, by looking back in history at how the collections came to be and what role they have played, can provide interesting perspectives on the design museum of the future. The five participating design museums are: Design Museum Brussels, Designmuseum Danmark, mudac Lausanne, Triennale Milano and Domaine de Boisbuchet.

Danish design treasures
For the exhibition, Designmuseum Danmark’s director Anne-Louise Sommer and the museum’s curator team together with Design Museum Den Bosch have selected 31 objects that show the breadth of the museum’s collections – from Japanese sword ornaments to contemporary designers such as Louise Campbell to some of the most well-known objects from the golden age of Danish design with furniture by Finn Juhl, Kaare Klint and Arne Jacobsen.

Future museum collaboration
The Trans Europa Design Express exhibition is expected to be the first step in a longer museum collaboration between the six design museums. About the new collaboration, Anne-Louise Sommer says:

“As a type of museum, design museums have a special status. There are typically many art museums around. They can be specialized or similar to each other. But there is often just one design museum. In Denmark, we are the national design museum. This means that we have to look outside the country’s borders if we are to find museums that are similar to us. I have spoken to several international colleagues – for example the five we are currently collaborating with on the exhibition – about the fact that we belong to a family. A family of European (international) design museums. We are different, have different collections and are museums with different profiles, but basically we are bound together by a kinship that is inspiring to cultivate. Therefore, I also look forward to more cooperation in the future”.

On the occasion of the exhibition, the six directors have written a cultural statement which articulates the role of design museums as diplomatic actors in a turbulent time. The post can be read here.

Photos: Ben Nienhuis