Polish Design to Go exhibition. Closeness

About:

It's getting harder and harder to be close. Physical or emotional closeness are scarce commodities. We both miss intimacy and fear it. Without it we wither and die. At the same time it is difficult for us to build it as we're getting out of practice.

Loneliness full of fear
The pandemic has drastically reduced face–to–face contact, but this problem is older. Since long ago we spend less and less time together, distracted and tired we stop caring about relationships. We don't have time. People that live together often pass each other rather than see each over. We are lonely.

Surrogate relationships?
Tired from work we don't have patience to build relationships. Instead, we have “contacts” in social medias, we have “relationships” with characters from tv shows and “relationships” with characters from computer games. We lose ourselves in virtuality. The question asked by Morpheus from The Matrix: “What is real?” is alarmingly up-to-date. Sometimes house pets become our loved ones, our therapists and our family. Because relationship, family and the feeling of home are still our main desires. We want closeness! Unlike our parents or grandparents – that's why we are looking for new role models and ideas for a “family”. We are confronted by death which came into our lives with intensity during the pandemic and war. We have to face the sudden breaking of important ties. We have to face leaving.

The objects at the exhibition are a pretext to tell stories, both those related to design and those universally human, revolving around important topics: being together, virtuality/reality, family, death. The main theme of the exhibition is closeness.

The Bochinski Foundation is organizer of the exhibition.