Learning From Japan

While I went to the opening back in October, it wasn't until last week that I returned to Designmuseum Danmark to take a proper look at its latest exhibition, Learning from Japan. Showing work from both Japan and Denmark from the 1870s up to 2010, it explores an interesting, and rarely considered idea: that rather than always being the influence, sometimes Danish design has been the movement being influenced...

Vital Interventions: Assemble wins the Turner Prize

Assemble, a collective of London-based 'sort of' architects who design and make urban interventions and community collaborations has won the 2015 Turner Prize, the UK art world's highest accolade, previously won with such iconic conceptual works as Damien Hirst's cow and calf in formaldehyde and Martin Creed's light going on and off. The work that got Assemble nominated is very different: a regeneration project in Liverpool's dilapidated Toxteth neighbourhood, which is inspiring proof of the power of a determined community and enlightened designers. But what does Assemble winning the Turner Prize mean for work of this kind in the future?

Buy Design in Ireland 2015

It's always handy to know where to go when you fancy a little design shopping, but it's especially useful this time of year. I've put together guides to buying design in Dublin and in Ireland before, but here's one with a few of my old favourites, new finds and seasonal pop ups to make sure you have plenty of options when it comes to buying gifts this year. Without further ado...

The Vitrine Project

Cropping up around Dublin on 20 November and launched on YouTube today, The Vitrine Project is a collaboration between advertising agency In the Company of Huskies and Irish Design 2015 (ID2015) that aims to reframe the everyday. Marking the opening of Liminal, an exhibition of contemporary Irish design that ID2015 has brought home to Dublin following showings in Milan and Eindhoven earlier this year, gallery-style vitrines were deployed for one day across Dublin to re-present the everyday objects that surround us. Placed over bins, street furniture, bar stools and products in shops, the vitrines were accompanied by the type of label you see beside a museum artefact, but in this case the labels told viewers what the objects were, proclaimed that 'Design is everywhere' and asked the question, 'Does this object belong in a design museum?'

Nordic Makers

The timing has been pretty funny: as I move to Copenhagen, a Danish duo open a design store in Ireland. Based between here and Dublin, Klaus Kristian Sørensen and Louis Weyhe Funder opened the doors of their shop, Nordic Makers, in Dún Laoghaire three months ago, bringing limited edition work from small studios and emerging designers all over the Nordic region to an Irish audience. And as Klaus and Louis tell me here in Copenhagen, that Irish audience is lapping it up.