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A visit to Ed Annink
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Ed Annink, born in Utrecht in 1956, first attended the Gold and Silversmith School in Schoonhoven before studying furniture design and interior design at the Royal Academy of Art and Design in The Hague. In addition to his work as a product, exhibition and graphic designer, he has above all made a name for himself as a teacher.
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In 1986, soon after graduating from university and founding his own firm, Ontwerpwerk, he designed a Post Modern Room at the Central Museum in Utrecht and was subsequently offered a lectureship at the Academy of Industrial Design in Eindhoven (renamed the Design Academy Eindhoven in 1997). He taught there until 1994, in the „Man and Living“ department. At the same time, he held various teaching posts at a range of art colleges and universities, including the Art Academy in Arnheim, the HDK in Berlin, the Istituto Europeo di Design in Milan and the Université de Montreal in Quebec.
Since 1998, Annink has been in charge of an annual 6-day summer workshop for the Vitra Design Museum in Boisbuchet, which owes its popularity to its liberal, experimental approach. From 2000 to 2003, he was also director of the FunLab, a masters course for experience and entertainment design at the Design Academy in Eindhoven. One of his latest initiatives is „Bright Minds, Beautiful Ideas“ – an exhibition in which designs by Charles and Ray Eames and Bruno Munari are brought together with the work of Jurgen Bey and Marti Guixé. It took place in Lisbon in May 2003, accompanied by a workshop headed by Bey and Guixé. In autumn 2004 it will be on show again at Rotterdam’s Kunsthal.
The Ontwerpwerk is located in the labyrinthine, historic building complex of a former fire brigade barracks in the centre of The Hague. In the upper storeys, there are some almost cosy studio rooms and offices with old wooden joist floors, whilst the ground storey accommodates prestigious meeting rooms and the employees’ „lunch room“. It was here that design report spoke to Ed Annink.
Mr. Annink, I recently read that you are in favour of completely revising the way we think about the design profession. It sounds great – but what exactly do you mean by that?
I believe we have to think about all the things we’ve done so far; what the task of the designer currently is and what significance design has for the economy. We’ve produced far too much in the last 25 years. The designers’ signatures all look the same. There are hardly any outstanding designers and, in my view, no real contributions to the development of design.
Was that any different 25 years ago?
Yes, back then we didn’t have so many products. But in the meantime there are huge numbers of different chairs, cups, bras. There’s too much of everything. And yet the question is: Just because we live in a time of abundance, do we have to continue producing so much? Or should we instead get used to the idea that we can manage with less?
So what kind of design do you think still has a right to exist?
I think that good design must above all be based on a good idea. It might be an innovation in terms of material, convenience, colour or usage, or the circumstances of usage. But above all, it goes beyond the object itself. I think it has to go even further. A designer should not only use the design phase to make the object, but above all to play a part in determining the context of the object. There is one very common situation I find particularly disturbing: when a firm commissions a designer to create a specific product, along the lines of: „We need a blue lamp, do one for us. Make it out of this material and for that machine.“
Is that something the students in your workshops learn? Are they allowed to break away from the object?
Yes, definitely. For Vitra, for instance, I always work with these theme boxes, which contain pictures of all kinds of things. Each student can choose four theme boxes and has to pull one picture card out of each of them at random. I tell the students that I don’t expect them to design a chair or a table. They ought to think about the meaning of the pictures, and the combination of the pictures’ meanings. At the end of the week, I want them to present a statement to me. It doesn’t matter if it is a chair. But that isn’t necessarily the goal. It can also be a performance. Or going for a night-time swim in the river.
Then I always tell them a story about a journey and a coincidence which dramatically changes the perception of this journey. If people are receptive to that kind of thing, they can really get into establishing relationships between the pictures and other things, mixing them up to create something new out of them.
The boxes contain a huge variety of different pictures, from insects via art performances and design objects all the way to landscape photos. What do you base your choice on?
The content consists of things that are important for my own design decisions. That doesn’t just mean furniture or products, but also other disciplines and areas. Things like faith, pain, landscape, art, jewellery. Let’s take insects as an example: They are incredibly interesting – in terms of their material, their construction, their movement, but also their behaviour.
Are any trends evident in the themes the students choose?
Yes, „Pain“ has been very popular for several years now. And „Man“ is often chosen too. „Country“ is also very popular, which is why the cards are so tatty. But I only added „Belief“ this year. Each year, there are more boxes. I do a lot of research for it, searching through books for new themes.
What is one of your workshops like?
`The workshop week is very intense: We do a lot of talking, a lot of sketching, a lot of trying out. Then, at the end, I want to see the statement. If somebody says he wants to do a performance in a blue room and crawl around on the floor like an insect, that’s fine by me. As long as he can explain why, to me and the other students. There are always some fantastic presentations. Not once has anybody had nothing to show me.
Does anyone ever come up with a chair or a table?
No, not until now.
Have you ever had any students that just couldn’t get on with your method and gave up on the workshop?
I once had a student who wanted to jack it in. I said: That’s fine, but then on Friday I want you to tell the whole group why you stopped. It turned out to be a great story.
And have there been any really unusual presentations?
Well, I had a Japanese student who spent three days photographing tiny flowers in the grounds. During the presentation she initially projected the photos onto the wall and said: „Yukiko found flowers. Now Yukiko is catching flowers.“ Then somebody aimed the projector away from the wall and onto her T-shirt. She let us look at the flowers on her chest, back and sides. Then she said: „Yukiko makes the flowers disappear.“ She shook her T-shirt whilst somebody else slowly pushed his hand in front of the projector. It really looked as if the flowers were disappearing. We were all so moved, we had tears in our eyes.
So the results tend to be more of an artistic nature.
Well, at the very least they belong in the category „definitely not suitable for production“. But the students take home an extra piece of baggage that will be of help to them in the future.
In what way will it be of help to them?
They learn how to get from nothing to an idea. And how this idea can then be translated into a presentation that convinces the audience. It’s all about concepts. And about putting the things in one’s mind into an order.
The workshop participants leave their training behind them and meet students from all over the world. Industrial designers take part, but also architects or advertising people. I’ve even had chemistry students. I find this mix of disciplines and the concentration of creativity in one week very useful. Both for me and the students.
It’s very interesting to see whether somebody from Poland can make anything of a picture of a religious rite in Italy. And whether it has any impact later on, when he has to design a chair. Whether he makes a chair in which rites play a role, for instance. Or whether he is more aware of the quality of the chair. It’s all about stimulating the brain. And about a feeling for history and an idea of the future. I try to break open the students’ skulls, reach in and touch and stimulate everything. I don’t have to talk about design to do that.
In comparison the FunLab masters course in Eindhoven, which you initiated and headed until 2003, is about down to earth design. And above all, about commerce ...
The FunLab is the first course to be completely sponsored by industry. A few years ago, faced with the recession, the entertainment industry was worried that their products would no longer sell so well. They decided it was time for some new ideas. The FunLab came into being when a Dutch roller coaster builder was looking for new possibilities for his distribution network. We then decided not to use Disneyland but examples from outside the industry as models for new entertainment design. The entertainment industry is known for being content with copying the already familiar. Designers can develop new things for this branch of industry that are not only bigger, faster and more expensive.
But also ...
If you look at fine art, for instance, you can learn a lot from it that would benefit entertainment design. Perhaps it even means the entire notion of entertainment can be totally renewed. We spent two and a half years working in this area and for example conducted projects with Schiphol airport and the De Efteling amusement park.
Yet it all remained theoretical.
Yes, because it was training. We didn’t actually want to find any solutions, but simply initiate a process of emerging awareness. Although I myself would have liked to turn the ideas into practice, that was not possible within the university system. Originally, I also wanted to set up FunLab Studios. My plan was that we would first do the research part at the university and that a commercial branch, namely FunLab Studios, would then take on the development for a company. But that didn’t fit in with the Dutch education system.
So what was the problem?
The question of copyright, for instance. And what do you do with a student who concentrates too much on such a real project instead of doing his courses? There were all kinds of obstacles. At the end of the day, that was why I chucked in my post as course director. At the moment I’m busy founding a firm called „Creative-Vitamines“ which is intended to do exactly the same, but all the way to implementation.
Besides that, I want to found the „Nomadic Academy“. It’s an academy without a fixed address. A small group of people at each workshop are to decide on the theme and also in which country and in collaboration with which institution the project should take place. Through my teaching in New Zealand, Germany and other countries I’ve established so many contacts that it really ought to work out. That would be great, because it would be a way of escaping from the normal university system with all its rules and hindrances.
The workshop on „Bright Minds“ in Lisbon was a kind of trial run for it. I asked Marti Guixé to do a workshop about global phenomena. At the same time, Jurgen Bey did one on the same theme. 20 students pondered the roll of design and designers, via the routes stipulated by Guixé and Bey.
But that means the results were much more strongly influenced by the way the teachers work than is the case in your workshops.
Yes, my workshops are totally different. I don’t influence the direction the statements take, what I really want is for the participants to find their own way.
And what do you learn from your workshops?
I’m constantly surprised by the discussions I have with the people in them. Even when they are about the same subject, discussions vary with each different person. There are no rules and no fixed laws that dictate how things have to be developed. Nobody can determine what design should be like. I think it’s wonderful that there are so many opinions. And it’s interesting to see people’s motivation for doing something. I learn a great deal from that. Nor do I want to spend every single day designing. After all, a good design doesn’t depend on the amount of time you invest in it, but more on the circumstances under which it arises.
Do the workshops also influence your designs, then?
Indirectly, yes. Every encounter with people in such a workshop atmosphere sharpens my own way of thinking. That leads me to ideas that I wouldn’t otherwise have. It’s just like when you read a book or go to an exhibition. Every input and everything that means something to you is somehow important. You just have to be curious.
Text: Anneke Bokern
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designreport 04/2004 |
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