Design Culture and the Coronavirus
This series of weekly newsletters was sent between March and July 2020, while Het Nieuwe Instituut's buildings were closed. Design culture and the coronavirus pandemic are the common thread in these newsletters, which feature a thematic selection of web content, online programming and projects from the field.
13 April 2020
A design assignment was linked to this series of newsletters. Every week, Het Nieuwe Instituut invited a different designer to create a cover for the web magazine, based on a format by Moniker, in response to the question: What's occupying you now?
On the Surface: Timber and Plastic
Het Nieuwe Instituut Online/Offline #16 On the surface, timber, plastics and other materials have become essential for preventing contagion with Covid-19. Yet their industries continue to aggravate the degradation of ecosystems, closely intertwined with the rise of pandemics to begin with. This newsletter brings to the surface a selection of design projects that respond to the changing role of material industries in current social and ecological crises.
Queer Mental Health and Safer Spaces
Het Nieuwe Instituut Online/Offline #15 The past Pride Month, June 2020, differed from the usual commemoration of the Stonewall riots --one of the main events leading to the TQLGBIA+ struggle for equal rights, and its yearly celebration by members of the TQLGBIA+ community. The signs of exhaustion of the system in place had become even more evident.
The Unusual in the Everyday
Het Nieuwe Instituut Online/Offline #14 During the week of 6 to 11 July 2020, Het Nieuwe Instituut is celebrating the opening of two exhibitions with a series of online events. Atelier Nelly and Theo van Doesburg and Gijs Bakker & K. Schippers: Basics can then be visited from 11 July at the institute and Sonneveld House respectively.
Neufert's 1.5 Metre
Het Nieuwe Instituut Online/Offline #13 The Covid-19 pandemic has directly contributed to an increased awareness of the different movements of various bodies in public space. At the same time, in the Netherlands social distancing has led to the introduction of a single standard which is imposed on all of society: the 1.5 metre rule. This recalls the rational control of society based on uniform solutions that make public life possible, yet at the same time contribute to detrimental forms of exclusion.
Regeneration. New Institutional Practices
Het Nieuwe Instituut Online/Offline #12 Through its annual Fellowship programme, Het Nieuwe Instituut acknowledges and gives visibility to research projects offering departures from established modes of thinking. For this iteration, the Open Call for Fellows focuses on the theme Regeneration. New Institutional Practices. Following previous calls on the body's burn-out (2018) and planetary exhaustion (2019), the 2020 programme invites collectives to take current conditions of burn-out and exhaustion as a point of departure to generate forms of collective organisation and action.
Het Nieuwe Instituut Online #4 Now that The Hoodie exhibition in its physical form is temporarily closed, this newsletter focuses on hoodies in a different way - as seen in the home, on the street and on Het Nieuwe Instituut's website. The hooded jumper has a lot to say about the times we live in. It tells us about social inequality, youth culture and different subcultures; about racism, privacy and fear - and of course, about style too. Which stories does the new coronavirus pandemic confirm or reinforce, and which ones does it add to?