I-City/We-City exhibited in Chicago
News from Nowhere by Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho featuring I-City/We-City by MVRDV/The Why Factory is currently on show at the Sullivan Galleries of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). News from Nowhere: Chicago Laboratory couples the work of the two artists with that of visionary architects, designers, scientists, philosophers, and other thinkers in a massive interdisciplinary investigation that examines the world as it is today by imagining a postapocalyptic future.
News from Nowhere: Chicago Laboratory builds upon a presentation shown at last year’s Documenta (13) in Kassel, Germany that describes a world in which the human race is nearly wiped out by manmade and natural catastrophes and must relearn the most basic skills and values. The project was inspired by eponymous 1890 novel by the 19th-century British designer William Morris, who envisioned an agrarian worker society in which divisions among art, life, and work were erased. For that presentation MVRDV/The Why Factory contributed a vision titled I-City/We-City built upon the ideas of new autarchy. It was developed on the basis of Ego-City, a project by Dalia Zakaite, which was part of Anarchy Design Studio at The Why Factory in Spring semester 2011/2012.
Besides the vision of T?F News from Nowhere include perspectives from science, architecture, product design, engineering, philosophy, and religion, as well as the arts. The collaborators include Toyo Ito, the 2013 Pritzker Prize-winner (Tokyo); takram design engineering (Tokyo); MVRDV/The Why Factory design collaborative (Rotterdam/Delft); Kuho Jung and Kosuke Tsumura, fashion designers (Seoul and Tokyo, respectively); and mime Yu Jin Gyu (Seoul).
The exhibition will remain on view in SAIC’s Sullivan Galleries through December 21, 2013, during which period it will serve as an open platform for continued explorations.
Sullivan Galleries, 33 S. State St., 7th floor