Het Nieuwe Instituut

As the curators of the exhibition Finders Keepers, the editors of the design and crafts magazine MacGuffin reveal the universe of the collector, bringing together objects from dozens of collections and exploring the collectors’ strategies, the aesthetic pleasure of collecting and the hidden life of things.

The exhibition The Other Architect, organised by the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal, explores the practice of various architects since the 1960s who have embraced a broader definition of their roles as designers. It showcases architecture’s potential to identify the urgent issues of our time, featuring 22 case studies that illustrate how international and often multidisciplinary groups invented and adopted new methods outside of traditional design practices.

Myriad forms of appropriation, such as squatting, play an essential role in the development of the city and public space. Architecture of Appropriation examines ideas such as vacancy, property, alternative living arrangements and housing policy.

Designing the Surface, an exhibition where the final topcoat targets the senses, investigates a compendium of artefacts over five sets: lustre, patina, faux, teflon and agency.

Rafaël Rozendaal questions the anonymity and ephemerality of the screensaver and is fascinated by its subversive, playful and diffuse character. He creates an immersive space for the visitor that captures the extraordinary visual language of this virtually lost medium.

How do truth and myth relate to archives? From 28 January until 25 June 2017 Het Nieuwe Instituut presents the project The Transylvania Archive by artist duo Marta Volkova and Slava Shevelenko. The project ingeniously weaves together themes such as the relevance of the archive, how artists relate to power, and fear of strangers.

To celebrate the hundredth anniversary of De Stijl, Het Nieuwe Instituut has formed partnerships with several other cultural institutions, including a co-production with the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague.

This web magazine contains background information about the interactive web documentary 51 Sprints, which puts the Olympic athlete centre stage.

The city of Rio de Janeiro has an advanced command and control centre from which various scenarios – from traffic jams to acts of terrorism and natural disasters –  can be predicted and potentially prevented. The installation Control Syntax Rio, on show at Het Nieuwe Instituut from 12 June 2016, shows how this Olympic city is being read as a matrix of potential calamities and the impact this has on the social climate of the city.

The 1972 Olympic Games offered the host country, West Germany, an unrivalled opportunity to portray itself to the world as a modern, democratic and culturally aware nation. This carefully constructed image was marred two weeks into the games when eight members of the Black September Organisation infiltrated the Olympic Village and took the Israeli team hostage. The exhibition Munich 1972. The Design of a Democratic Body tells this controversial story through the lens of design, by contrasting the narratives and aesthetic strategies of the organisers with the tactics deployed for their disruption.

The installation Space Embodied. The Russian Art of Movement 1920–1930, is about the new, free human as propagated by the Russian avant-garde. Space Embodied is an installation about the body in movement: life-size projections of dancers, a dance floor, stage sets and mirrors confront visitors in a direct and physical way with the historical material from the 1920s.

With universal themes such as Birth, Work, Sex, Security and Health, the exhibition The Life Fair: New Body Products explores how the quest for an optimal body has developed into a highly competitive market. First and foremost in the development of goods and services: commercial parties whose products exploit the fears and desires underlying our physical capacities and vulnerabilities.

This series of four exhibitions is the result of an investigation into modest platforms and the ways in which they connect the human body with the surrounding physical (and sometimes digital) space. The successive installations address the yoga mat, the beach towel, the tatami and the prayer rug. The research focuses on the material and symbolic meanings of these platforms by exploring their history and the way they are used in different cultures.

The multiyear cultural programme De Staat van Eindhoven (The State of Eindhoven) looked at the changing relationship between government and citizens and, specifically, Eindhoven’s twofold ambition of being a smart city in a participatory society.

The New Haberdashery was established as part of the Temporary Fashion museum. It is a studio in which visitors can try their hand at making clothes and other textile products.

Construction of The New Garden started in the spring of 2015 on the outdoor area around Het Nieuwe Instituut. Artist/designer Frank Bruggeman and ecological gardener Hans Engelbrecht have developed a plan to turn the strip of grass along Jongkindstraat into a place of encounter set amidst vegetation. At the same time, reeds and water-purifying plants breathe life into the pond in front of the building. In addition, The New Garden will connect with the Arcade, the covered space along Rochussenstraat, thus also enlivening this desolate side of the building. In the summer of 2019 AFARAI, in collaboration with the users of The New Garden, have developed a programme of interventions, public events and conversations about unscripted public space.

Het Nieuwe Instituut examined the challenges and potential of the digital archive. Starting from the premise of the archive as system, a series of themes linked to exhibitions at Het Nieuwe Instituut formed the basis of new research by artists, designers and photographers, in search of the invisible layers of the digital archive.