AKUT #4 ENDANGERED SPACES & SPECIES

New exhibition at Designmuseum Danmark
explores the traces of a changing globe

On 28 June, Designmuseum Danmark opens an exhibition that invites visitors to explore our shared past, present and future. Through sensuous digital animations, glacier-like sculptures and virtual landscapes created by young designers and architects, the exhibition ENDANGERED SPACES & SPECIES puts the spotlight on the places and species that are disappearing due to our use of the Earth’s resources and thus also on a changing globe.

Animal and plant species are becoming extinct, biodiversity is steadily declining, and places and areas are disappearing. The world is changing, but the question is if we fully understand the consequences. The exhibition ENDANGERED SPACES & SPECIES focuses on how designers and architects are currently using advanced digital technology to explore, “preserve,” and recreate the places and species that are disappearing. They bring the past, present, and future to life, thus making the radical changes present to underscore the need for urgent action.

A world that is both in ruins and flourishing
Digital designer and artist Ida Lissner explores the relationship between human, nature, and technology in computer-generated images and 3D animations. She creates sensual, virtual worlds with stories that mimic the experienced past and nature as we know or remember it. The digital animation The sky has not fallen yet (2022) is part of Ida Lissners ongoing body of work that attempts to shift our perspective of reality and challenge our common understanding of the natural world. It is a process of re-imagining the stories, images and metaphors that shape ecological thinking and an exploration of how to thrive and survive on a damaged planet. The work shows the juxtaposition of contrasts that seems to be a living condition of The Anthropocene – the age of human impact on Earth. A world that is both in ruins and flourishing, and where hope and despair coexist.

From the depths of Svalbard’s glaciers
Tideland Studio works across natural sciences, design, architecture, and art and combines field recordings, storytelling, and experience design in their efforts to find new perspectives and solutions to the challenges we face now and in the future. In the Archive of Endangered Spaces project, Tideland Studio has explored, measured, and captured data from the depths of Svalbard’s glaciers and attempted to capture the traces of a changing climate. The virtual landscapes are just as intangible as the Arctic ice. It turns out that observing the world with laser precision does not provide any precise answers, but fascinating new perspectives on a landscape caught between duration and collapse. The project shows the interaction between digital and physical worlds, between scanning and manufacturing, between science and fiction.

ENDANGERED SPACES & SPECIES is part of the exhibition series AKUT, that set the stage for design and designers who are interested in the latest developments and work with major changes that have significance for all of us. The exhibition series addresses topics where design and designers are at the center of major societal dilemmas and challenges.

ENDANGERED SPACES & SPECIES is on view in the ”AKUT room” at Designmuseum Danmark from 28 June until 22 October 2023.