An example of the fascination with everyday objects can be seen in the Bürstenmanufaktur, a shop and workshop located in the suburbs of Dresden, which focuses exclusively on the production of various types of handmade brushes. Is such a place still a shop with functional tools or a shop with objects of desire? The characters of The Bristles project are based on twisted wire technology, based on objects that are specifically related to inaccessible places. Inspiration comes from places such as a fireplace and chimney brush, a kitchen sink and a dish cleaning brush, or a colorful duster with a cleaning room as a representation of places that are hidden from children for various reasons. As a result, the eight spirits each represent one of the environments. The workshop followed this idea and both child and adult participants could make their own character for the mantelpiece.

First of all, while I was learning the technique, I had to answer myself why I wanted to save traditional craftsmanship like this or any craftsmanship at all. The idea behind this project was based primarily on the energy and passion for the craft that the craftsman had to convey through his product. It could also be described as the spirit that the craftsman put into each item.The collection of photos follows the way of how I feel the passion of the craftsmen for the craftsmanship and how the spirit is living in the product, in the technique and the material is just presented in nowadays form. How could be the spirit of cattail weaving projected into everyday life?

Glasses are like filter. Thanks to them David feels like a spectator of the play called “The life and the World”. That is a position that is uncommon for David, as an actor. With the glasses, he lives the moment with lightness and perspective natural for him.The shape is inspired by modern architecture and follows the sharp and rounded details of the modernist style. Rims are made of vintage acetate from the traditional brand Mazzucchelli and shaped and made in collaboration with the Optiqa glasses brand.

The Beautiful Work initiative builds on the past of the Družstevní Práce and the Krásná Jizba organizations, which in the last century sought to cultivate Czechoslovak design and modernize folk art. This project is shaped by a team of art historians,ethnographers and designers who have combined their knowledge and strength to introduce folk crafts to the general public.The aim, however, is not only to educate but to integrate this creation back into people’s everyday lives and thus support its creators.This exhibition gives space to the making process, tools and technologies alongside the individual student projects. The presentation included four workshops in which the audience,together with the artists, could try working with selected materials or craft techniques such as cattail weaving or fish scale embroidery. The results of the collective work subsequently became part of the exhibition. The idea of sustainability also permeates the installation of the exhibition, conveyed through the bales of straw that were used for the exhibition using local resources and then given to local farmers, or the sheets of metal that are reusable thanks to the large surface area left undamaged.In addition to these initiatives, there was also an accompanying catalog that addressed the issue of the value of crafts in their complexity. In addition to descriptions of individual artifacts, it contains reflections and essays by young authors describing their personal ways of grasping tradition and its future development.

Introduction to the exhibition:“The world’s 7.6 billion people represent just 0.02% of all livingthings, according to the study. Yet since the dawn of civilization,humanity has caused the loss of 83% of all wild mammals and half of plants, while livestock kept by humans abounds.”Is the entire history of anthropization an eternal fight between human beings and the wild natural world? During the workshop,the participants have been exploring this relationship through artistic representation, design, and architecture. The process helps us re-evaluate the anthropocentric matrix in which we shaped global habitats. The art historian George Berger begins his journey in the evolution of an animal-man relationship, precisely by referring to cave graffiti in “Why look at animals?”. The intent of the essay does not seem so much to explore the animal world but to rediscover the human himself by observing his relationship with animals. The focus of analyses is the relation between man and nature. An essential aspect of this is the construction of a surrogate of the natural world and of animals within it,where “owning domestic animals, which we keep amongst us independently of their usefulness, is part of the recollection of human being around the fireplace, the withdrawal in the family unit,decorated and furnished with fetishized relicts of the outside world. Domesticated animals fall into this category. The hearth, a central element of the human shelter, is a primordial architecture and becomes the container of these fetishes. These talismans of the external world are shaped in our image and likeness.”The seven participants focused their attention on a symbol of these fetishes, the fireplace. If we can trace the act of sitting around a bonfire to the first human tribe, the fireplace is the domesticated version of it. The works presented are a reflection of this act: bringing the bone fire to the domestic environment and transforming it into architectural objects as great examples of our relationship with the wild natural world.by Luca Marullo and Stefano Colombo

The highly collaborative project presents a multimedia installation created by the students of product design and future graphic and digital designers. Wanting to build an interactive space in which one could enjoy both the aesthetic and acoustic qualities of the objects, we found a way of playing the instruments without actually touching them.In this immersive installation, it is not only possible to listen to the samples of the instruments but also to layer and combine them in different ways using a controller. The project invites you to experiment, to get involved, to enter the world of music.Leave behind the dualities between analog and digital, acoustic and visual, traditional and modern!