In Design Museum’s open call for 2021 the theme is New knowledge

Design Museum Helsinki is searching for an exhibition that explores the theme of New knowledge. The opening of the exhibition selected through this international call will be included in the programme of Helsinki Design Week in September 2021.

This is the fourth consecutive year that the Design Club Open Call is in the quest for powerful, critical contents to feature in the Gallery space of the Design Museum Helsinki. The series of open calls was first launched as a three-year pilot programme in 2018. The pilot proved a success, so the decision was made to continue the open calls.

The theme New knowledge can have an array of meanings, depending on the applicant and their proposal, from reinterpreting existing or historical information, data mining or data visualizations to the creation of a new kind of understanding enabled by encounters between individuals.

The seaweed design laboratory at The Critical Tide Exhibition — The Critical Tide Exhibition in 2019 included a seaweed design laboratory in which Julia Lohmann built objects from seaweed and introduced the Department of Seaweed community of practice. She also worked there weekly.

“In addition to its topicality, New knowledge was picked as this year’s theme as it immediately inspired more questions in us. Can information be the material or working method of a designer? Do we expect that design only offers strictly fact-based information or is it possible that the outcome is speculative and fictive by nature?” Suvi Saloniemi, Chief Curator at Design Museum, notes.

Design Club Open Call 2021

The call for exhibition proposals is open for Finnish and international designers, working groups, businesses, curators, researchers or students.

In the Soil Laboratory, reminiscent of a pottery studio, research, art and personal stories are used to dig deeper in this theme with the help of a diversified team of experts in soil. Photo: Paavo Lehtonen

The exhibition concept selected through the application process will be granted production funding to the amount of €10,000. The winning proposal will also be offered the use of the Gallery space of the Design Museum, help for putting the exhibition together and for its basic expenses.

The Design Club Open Call 2021 by the Design Museum will open on Monday, 9 November 2020 and close on 27 December 2020. See detailed application instructions on Designmuseum’s website. The exhibition will be a part of Helsinki Design Week 9–19 September 2021.