Design Commissions
Set designer Katrin Bombe created the exhibition design for _Lithium _(2020).
Lithium
"Many exhibition designs are transparent," says Katrin Bombe. "The construction is placed in the space so that the building around it remains visible. For Lithium, I designed my own universe in which I include the viewer. Het Nieuwe Instituut's Research Department was keen to present the investigations into the raw material lithium in the form of a spa where visitors can undergo various 'therapies'. By creating closed forms, I allowed the spa's different spaces to merge into one another."
Bombe normally works as a scenographer for theatre and opera performances. "When you've worked as a scenographer for a long time, you develop a signature style," she says. "I work intuitively and narratively. While other scenographers design more architectural and demarcated spaces, my work is more atmospheric; almost coloured in. People often think that I work with images and materials, but I mainly make lots of technical drawings. I come up with ideas while I'm drawing the space and researching the topic."
The atmosphere and colours of the Atacama salt flats, where lithium is extracted, were important starting points for Bombe's exhibition design for Het Nieuwe Instituut. Architect Godofredo Enes Pereira's research into this part of Chile is presented in the Salt Room, one of the exhibition's spa treatment rooms. "In the four heat therapy booths, in which video works show the development of the lithium battery, I used the colours of a battery gradually depleting - from green for full, through yellow and orange, to red for empty," she explains. "These colours work well with the story told there: from optimism about the environmentally friendly promise, to concerns about the limits of growth in battery use."
The succession of spaces unfolds like a narrative, Bombe adds, from welcoming reception areas at the start, to the bathing areas where the temperature and subject's seriousness are raised. Calm returns in the final corridor, allowing the visitor to reflect on the search for lithium in the universe, where it should theoretically be present but has yet to be found. Although she believes the closed exhibition route may feel a bit oppressive here and there, she thinks it suits the subject's seriousness: "As far as I'm concerned, a design doesn't have to be immediately clear. It's exciting when it's more than just beautiful."
Conceived as a spa resort, the exhibition _Lithium _highlights the benefits and drawbacks of humankind's eternal search for energy. Researchers, designers and artists reflect on the role of the chemical element lithium in powering today's economy. How many times can we recharge our batteries without addressing the causes of depletion, both in human bodies and the planet?
Katrin Bombe
A scenographer based in Amsterdam and Cologne, Katrin Bombe has been designing sets for 15 years, mainly for theatre and opera performances in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway and Germany. She studied theatre, film design and art direction at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and psychology at the Goethe University Frankfurt. She was assistant set designer at Schauspiel Frankfurt during the 2008/9 season. She teaches stage design at the HKU University of the Arts in Utrecht and the Maastricht Academy of Dramatic Arts.