National customs, ethnic trends, and glocalization in contemporary design. The fashionable Africa, Japanese paper, and Russian fir-needle.
National customs, ethnic trends, and glocalization continue to evolve in contemporary design. African ornaments, Japanese paper, or Russian fir-needle can now be in demand on any continent. Designers refine their vision of elements of ethnic cultures and subcultures interconnected with particular places. How is the search of identity fulfilled in today’s design? The aesthetics and phenomenon of Virgil Abloh, new artisans from South Africa, creators from Lebanon and Singapore, young Ukrainian design represented by the project modern_ism… The lecture will also study the best cases of the Invented and Made in Russia competition, with the key leitmotif being the question how something unusual, typical, and purely local becomes common and global. At the same time, contemporary design strives for a high level of customization and hyperindividualized products. How can human DNA help designers to develop customized things, and how does it work practically? The lecture will analyze concept designs, experimental projects, as well as collections that have been successfully realized.