From May 14th to 30th, Graphic Days® will launch an international event in collaboration with Graphic Matters and The Embassy and the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Italy to present the best Dutch
and European visual design projects.
This year, in addition to the annual festival, the organization is launching an event entirely dedicated to the Dutch visual design scene: Eyes On the Netherlands. Starting May 14th, a program of exhibitions, workshops and online events will highlight the Dutch visual communication and the contaminations among European trends and
influences in this field. Toolbox Coworking, main partner since the beginning, will be the location of the event.
The Palace of Typographic Masonry exhibition will be presented for the first time . The Palace is an imaginary museum of graphic design focusing on the value and diversity of the craft. It is curated by the Dutch graphic designer Richard Niessen, who will be present during the event. This utopian palace brings together Niessen’s graphic design experiments and his research that together create an interdisciplinary cultural history and new theory of typography.
In the last five years, the project collected more than 750 visual artifacts and described these on index cards. The exhibition itinerary will consist in a tour of an imaginary institution organized as a progression through nine stages: the departments of Sign, Symbol, Ornament, Construction, Poetics, Game, Order, Craft and Practice.
An installation of 26 pop-up drawers shines its light on all kinds of aspects of the creative profession. The issues they explore range from the diversity of writing systems to the ways of constructing narratives, and from the involving aspect of play in design to the endless possibilities of an ornamental system.
Various designers created posters, books, videos, installations, lectures and an interactive tool to represent parts of the museum. During the event the museum will be no longer imaginary, but for the first time people will be able to visit it.
Besides this project Graphic Days® will present indoor and outdoor exhibitions with a selection of artworks by Dutch artists and designers that already take part in the festival’s network, such as Studio Dumbar, Trapped in Suburbia, High on Type, Studio Thonik and Daan Rietbergen.
Eyes On the Netherlands presents also a calendar of digital events and insights dedicated to the Dutch visual communication and the contamination between the European trends and influences in this sector. The programme of online events includes the contributions of the Dutch guests involved in the activities. Each guest will talk about the contents presented in the event, from exhibitions to performances. The live streams and special contents will be published for free on Graphic Days® Facebook profile and
YouTube channel.
The opening of the event will take place on May, 14th at 6 P.M.
The official Eyes On The Netherlands program is available on the official website
www.graphicdays.it/en.