Symphony of Blues
Curator: A4 studios
Location: Indigo Mall, winter garden, Beijing
Date: from 23 September to 7 October 2015
This year is the second time studio O was invited and decided to participate to the Beijing Design Week events. The first participation of studio O to the Beijing Design Week 2014,was with a customized exhibition named: ‘re-cycled memories’ in the hutong area of Dashilar.
The exhibition consisted, after a long investigation regarding the traditional porcelain makings, in‘re-cycling’ moments that where collected in the ‘disappearing’ hutong areas in Beijing.
The result was expressed by creating 15 (two millimeters) thin pure white porcelain (round shaped) pieces of 300 millimeters diameter each with the memory molded on them.
A question that rose from one of the masters from Jingdezhen, that produced for us these art pieces, was why we don’t consider to decorate these pure white porcelain pieces in blue, re-producing the 9th century cobalt blue (made with cobalts salts of alumina) and used by Chinese artisans.
For the Beijing Design Week 2015, studio O was invited to participate in 3 different events:
inGaobeidian with an exhibition named: “shadow memories”, in Baitasi with an architectural intervention in a hutong named: “baitasi re-made exhibition center” and was honored to be invited by A4 studio to participate for Indigo and the respected Swire group to an installation in the Winter Garden.
The approach of studio O for the Indigo installation named: “Symphony of Blues”,
started by considering the impressive open space as a ‘blank’ canvas, on which we have to create spaces for future designers to exhibit. Other important aspects we had to consider is the ‘organic’ and natural flow of people, in and out of the exhibition area with defined entries and exits areas (and in between the panels passage as a natural ‘hide and seek’ game for the children…), the different amount of natural light needed for each exhibition area, the sizes of the installation considering the proportions of the individual panels seen from the ground and from the terraces.
Last but not least was the choice of the color(s) to implement on the 400 fabric panels.
The choice of the blue color gradient for the “Symphony of Blues” installation,
came as a combination of few logic and instinctive decisions.
Starting by having a gradient solution in order to have different natural light areas, from darker areas to brighter ones, for the needs of the future exhibitors.
Finally the blue color (and gradient) solution was a decision studio O made as a continuation of our first Beijing Design Week 2014 exhibition “re-cycled memories” open ‘chapter’ regarding the color to implement on the white, it was also a needed approach for our installation to be as sober and ‘neutral’ as possible to allow the other colorful exhibitors to stand out.
At the same time we also ‘discovered’ that the earliest known blue dyes were made from plants wood in Europe and Indigo in Asia derived from the plant "Indigofera tinctoria".
Finally the number of different blues chosen for the “Symphony of Blues” installation,
came as a selection of 7 different tones of blues, that by modifying them through: saturation, brightness and hue, they compose the 88 various blues color palette, as such are the number of existing sounds in a symphony.
The material used for the installation will be recycled to produce several "Indigo Blue" fashion items such as bags and wallets ... in 88 tones of blue.
