Global initiative to foster creativity and innovation
BE OPEN has chosen the Botanical Garden of Brera (that was maintained beautifully with the help of experts from Drake’s 7 Dees garden nursery in Portland) as the amazing background of a sophisticated interdisciplinary project whose central theme is perfume.
The research will be presented on the occasion of EXPO 2015 in May, with a special preview during the Milan Design Week in April, due to the aesthetic and philosophical features this products embodies.
Elena Baturina, Founder of BE OPEN: “This is our first ever editorial project, the result of a one year research into the core of human nature. It was an attempt to open up the world of the senses. And this book is a celebration of our multi-sensory year, our year of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and perhaps intuition. Itis a portable ‘Gallery of the Senses’. That was our brief to young creatives worldwide. In these pages, you can enjoy a wealth of interviews with key thinkers and makers of our time. All reveal a strong and emotional reaction to the senses. Their excitement around human perception is a powerful stimulus for developing their work. Perhaps it will stimulate your own.”
The global philanthropic foundation announces a call to action on the subject of HANDS, our creative tools.
What can we do with our hands – fashion, craft, build, communicate? Material can be posted on BE OPEN’S Twitter, Instagram or website, with submissions being invited from 6 September 2014 through to 6February 2015. Entries will be appraised and uploaded as they come in, to www.beopensocial.com/hands.
The BE OPEN team will work with an international jury to select one winner of the HANDS project, who will then be invited on a three-day, all-expenses paid trip to Milan EXPO.
BE OPEN, the global philanthropic foundation that fosters innovation and creativity, announces the winners of the Made in … India Competition:
• FURNITURE – The Cuddle by Manoj Kuldeep, National Institute Of Design, Ahmedabad
• HOME ACCESSORIES – Roots to Tips by Namrata Kotwani, Raffles Design International, Mumbai
• HOME TEXTILES – Madhubani – a Lined Art by Vishakha Anand, National Institute of Fashion Technology, Mumbai
Sergio Matos; The BE OPEN trophy by Raw Edges; Matos’ Poltrona Balaio chair, inspired by Brazilian market baskets
Brazilian designer Sergio Matos has been named the Web Choice winner of the BE OPEN Young Talent Award. The decision was based on the public’s overall level of social media activity for the 37 long-listed candidates, through BE OPEN’s facebook page. The Web Choice winner’s trophy is a wooden egg in a wooden eggcup, designed by Young Talent Award jury member Raw Edges.
Last night the first winner of BE OPEN’s new annual prize, the Young Talent Award, was announced at a packed awards ceremony in the Expo Hall of the Unversita Statale di Milano.
Mischer’traxler was selected from a shortlist of ten candidates, from an original long list of thirty-seven, put forward by a leading international design industry jury. The Austrian duo win €24,000 to support their living expenses for a year and a unique egg trophy designed by Barber & Osgerby. Three, egg-inspired trophies have been created for the Awards by members of the jury, the egg symbolising nascent talent ready to hatch.
The young Indian designers stood, with studied insouciance, alongside their product displays in the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in Delhi. The default seemed to be pairs of designers: smiling thirtysomethings, male, encased in tight, highly finessed jackets and trousers. You may not have heard of Deepak and Sanjiv Whorra, Prateek Jain and Gautam Seth, or Thukral and Tagra. You probably haven’t handled terracotta iPod docks, geometrically tiled tables in Gujarati marble, or peacock wall-lamps, because most of the designers here are unknown outside India. And yet they have the patronage of international philanthropic foundation BE OPEN.
Curated with Roberto Zancan
Awards ceremony with presentation of designer trophies
at INTERNI – FEEDING NEW IDEAS FOR THE CITY
Expo Hall, Università degli Studi di Milano, via Festa del Perdono 7
Monday, April 7th, 6pm
In the presence of the jury
Shay Alkalay (Raw Edges), Giulio Cappellini (art director of Cappellini), Giorgio Galli (design director of Timex Group), Sofia Lagerkvist (Front), Jay Osgerby (Barber & Osgerby).
Create the ultimate Indian object for our future, using traditional handicrafts
Due to a fantastic response from Indian design schools and by popular demand, BE OPEN is extending the deadline for submissions to 28th April 2014.
The competition is open to all students enrolled at a recognised design school in India.
BE OPEN, the global philanthropic foundation that fosters innovation and creativity, is launching a “Made in … India” competition to seek out and platform the best new thinking about product design in India.
BE OPEN, the global philanthropic foundation, launched its worldwide project “Made in …” in Delhi last week, the beginning of a two-year journey to the ‘four corners’ of the earth to research the handmade and how to ensure its survival in the future.
Nowadays we tend to consider bespoke items as the ultimate form of luxury, since they stand above the homogenized mass market, offering the consumer a unique mode of self-expression. As a result, despite having been neglected for a considerable amount of time, crafts are now re-acquiring a leading place in the production chain, with their potential to offer this much desired exclusive and uniqueness.
