HOW TO APPROACH heavy subjects
light-heartedly? Just ask Freitag. In a bid to
stimulate discussion about bad consumer
attitudes in the 21st century, the Swiss brand,
best known for its bags made from recycled
truck tarpaulins, asked visitors to confess
their design and consumption sins.
The complete experience was to be
taken with a pinch of salt. Inside one of the
abandoned warehouses alongside Milan’s
central station that hosted the Ventura Cen-
trale exhibitors, visitors were asked to draw
a number and wait for their turn. Once their
number appeared on the screen of one of two
centrally situated confession booths, they
could enter and admit to their transgressions
in private via a ‘multiple-sin form’, or have a
liberating dialogue with a fellow offender inthe booth next door. And for those in a rush,
there was a fast lane to confession.
Elsewhere under the railway arch,
artist Georg Lendorff conceived an installa-
tion for contemplation. Light projected onto
hundreds of threads suspended from a hang-
ing grid created an immersive space where
visitors could roam around free of external
influences.
De-sinned and reset, and with a
personally printed tote bag to prove (and
promote) it, visitors left the exhibition to
continue their MDW journey with a little
voice in the back of their heads that helped
them question the design industry’s practices- with a grin. – FK
freitag.ch
Cl
au
dio
(^) G
ra
ss
i
Visitors to Freitag’s experience could
step into confession booths to admit
their consumption sins.
127