back	November 07, 2008 RSS

The Future of the City – MINI Design Award Exhibition 2008 in Rome

From today, the exhibition of MINI Design Award 2008 entrants is open to the general public. Situated in the heart of Trastevere, the exhibition will showcase the works of 33 artists and their interpretations of the competition topic: "The Future of the City: Our Environment. The Value of Water." The exhibition, which opened yesterday evening after a press conference, is separated into three parts. In the first part, the previous three editions of the competition are presented, with the works of the winners on show. Starting off with the topic "The Light" in 2005, one can proceed to observe works inspired by "The Customized City" (2006), and ultimately last year's results in the form of a presentation of video projections, information boards, photographs and other media relating to the topic, "The Communicative City."
The second part reminds us of the recently concluded Rome International Film Festival, to which MINI rendered a substantial contribution with the events held in the MINI Lounge. The three works presented were created as part of TernaIt01 - Live Art Performance, which was held in the MINI Lounge on October 25 of this year. It really is true that the longer you look at the works, the more familiar they become...and that's no coincidence: These are actually the roofs of three MINI Clubmans, creatively arranged as original works by Francesco Melone, Veronica Montanino and Matteo Peretti. On these rather unorthodox canvasses, the three artists tell the story of modernity with somewhat unconventional painting techniques and styles, with a liberal use of materials that, for us, are more familiar as plastic bags or the pages of photo novels.
Looking around, you can pick out elegant internet hotspots, which enable visitors to surf the MINI Design Awards website to find out how the 128 competitors resolved the topic of this fourth edition of the competition on the internet. As we get closer to the heart of the exhibition, we reach the third section: The hall in which the works of the 33 architects and designers participating in the MDA 2008. All of the works thematize the value of water as a resource at the beginning of the third millennium. Models of the winning works are presented in the hall, but the exhibition also gives us the opportunity to see the other competition entries, which can be observed on interactive monitors accessible to visitors. Interesting works, in which water is observed from various perspectives. Many of them are inspired by the principles of eco-design, and aim to teach people about a resource that is not, as many wrongly assume, inexhaustible. Aside from this, they have the general purpose of contributing to the optimization of water consumption, and combine their messages with ecological objectives. In this regard, the following artists created their works in various different ways: Marco Boldrini (Linfa), Luca Brignolo (Acquadotta), Andrea Ciotti (Water Packaging), Marco Spadafora (Fontana), Luigi Cuppone (Retrò), Mauro del Santo (Goccia per Goccia), Davide Radaelli (Rainflower), Luca Roscini (My Water),  Andrea Pitussi, Romano Brussolo (H2O helps Atmosphere), Chiara Mulas (H2O Powered). Entire communications and solidarity campaigns were realized by the following artists: Angelo Ricchiutti (BH2OK), Francesco Dompieri (Mille a uno), Lorella Pierdicca (Water for free). The works of Carla Scorda (Pozzo Riflesso) and Giovanni Moro (Acqua in Polvere) should be counted among these works. But water is also an aesthetic element, through which we can view the world from a different perspective. A toy, a source of refreshment and relaxation, a sensuous experience. The artists behind the following works have tried to present the element in exactly this light: Precious drops (Sara De Nicolis, Sara Colonna, Sara Zentacoli, Elena Scarrone), Pozzanghere urbane (Laura Fiaschi), L'altro senso (Enrico Girotti), Loto (Fiorenza Molli), Omaggio all'acqua (Vincenzo Spadaro), Quasinuvola (Fabio Verdelli), Urban Impluvium (Glenda Torres), Brainwashing (Alessia Rimoldi), Come in un acquario (Doretta Rinaldi), Spazi d'acqua autocontrollati (Placido Raineri), Punto azzurro (Elena Garnero, Sara Pezzetti) and Nebula (Chiara Moreschi); Acqualive, by Roberta Novelli, represents a useful information medium for all citizens. Finally, there is also Alessandro Recchi's dream dimension Free Power Water to cast your eyes over, which tries to bring all these ideas together. And the winners? Don't worry, we'll bring them to you soon enough! And if you really can't wait that long...Trastevere awaits! When and where? November 6 to 19, 2008; every day from 2pm to 10pm. Address: Spazio Ex Gil - Largo Ascianghi 5 Roma Free entry Related Links www.minidesignaward.it