Announcement curator Dutch Pavilion London Design Biennale 2023 Announcement curator Dutch Pavilion London Design Biennale 2023

It was a hard decision for the review committee to choose between three interesting and intelligent finalist proposals by designers who are all able to make a fantastic pavilion. Next to the theme of disruption and disorientation, it was specifically Keays' open and curious approach towards the process of the game and how that could lead to new collaborations and physical manifestations that the committee valued. Also the way in which Keays envisioned the Dutch pavilion as mediator, as add-on, as parasite to other pavilions was seen as interesting.

On receiving the news that he had been awarded the fellowship, Keays shared this statement with the jury:

"Our current times can be defined by a collective sense of disorientation: given the severity of the climate emergency, the erosion of trusted political structures worldwide and the many other interconnected crises happening at once, it's unsurprising that many of us feel the very ground beneath our feet to be increasingly unstable. Rather than hiding away from this sensation, what if we were to embrace it? At its core, disorientation is a spatial concept. The pavilion will therefore respond to this by being distributed throughout the space, disrupting the centralised and hierarchical tendencies ingrained in a biennale structure. Acting as both a mediator and disruptor between other national and territorial exhibitors, the Dutch Pavilion aims to provide multiple anchor-points that will encourage and allow for new collaborations and interrogations of one another's practice to take place, helping to re-orientate ourselves in the present moment."

Nieuwe Instituut is appointed as Artistic Director of the fourth edition of London Design Biennale, taking place from 1-25 June 2023 at Somerset House. Led by its General and Artistic Director, Aric Chen, the Nieuwe Instituut aims to experiment with the biennale's format of national and territorial pavilions through 'The Global Game: Remapping Collaborations,' a theme that not only asks participants to explore collaborative practices-but to in fact collaborate with each other, with the help of a game that is being developed for this purpose.

The Global Game is a web-based collaboration game, designed by Ekim Tan and her studio Play the City, for the biennale's participants and curators, alongside design enthusiasts worldwide. Playing the Global Game is like using a dating app, but one that offers a way for the biennale's participants to find each other by creating their own profiles, searching for others based on mutual interests and developing collaborations (with the support, if requested, of the Nieuwe Instituut). The game will enable a process for national and territorial pavilions, their curators, designers, and supporters to learn, think, create and act together on London Design Biennale's international stage. As they meet and form new collaborations, the game will influence the way participants approach and conceptualise their pavilions and how ideas and inspiration are exchanged between design teams and visitors and through the Biennale's public programme. On 1st June 2023, when the London Design Biennale opens, we will meet on location and experience the outcomes.

London Design Biennale is an international exhibition and thought leadership programme featuring world leading design innovation and creativity from countries across the globe. The event reveals the potential of design to respond radically to changing social and environmental needs, its contribution to the world economy and its power to drive change and find solutions for the benefit of all. Launched in 2016, with successful editions in 2018 and 2021, the exhibition asks participants to present compelling ideas from a diversity of viewpoints and across a broad range of design disciplines. Each Biennale edition invites participants to respond to a universal theme set by the Artistic Director.