Sonic bloom: Design Museum Holon is making noise about audio design
‘Here in Israel, we tend to blame the younger generation for choosing to go to a restaurant or concert over a museum,’ says Maya Dvash, chief curator at Design Museum Holon. ‘But they do this because of the need to have an experience – something that wasn’t previously fulfilled by the classic museum visit.’
Dvash and her team are on a mission to change this, filling Israel's premier design hub with immersive displays to touch, play with and hear, eschewing stuffy glass cabinets and library-quiet galleries. Recall the virtual reality units at the ‘eyewear through the ages' display last year, or Ron Arad's digital experimentations with crushed cars back in 2013.
For the museum's landmark summer exhibition, ‘Sound and Matter in Design’, interactivity is built into the very fabric of the building. Ron Arad's sweeping Corten steel walls have been dotted with speakers, emitting sounds controlled by the visitors themselves. Split into three parts, the exhibition comprises ‘Sensing Sound’, created and curated by Anat Safran and Lila Chitayat along with eight other sound artists and the Upper Gallery exhibition; ‘Seeing Sound’, curated by Anat Safran, Lila Chitayat and Elisabetta Pisu.
The exhibition comes at a moment of flux and reinvention in the world of audio design, as interconnectivity and portability become design priorities. ‘These days, we can listen to music everywhere, we are still able to hear, but we have been de-sensitised to sound, and are losing the ability to listen properly,’ says Dvash. ‘Our exhibition gives a place to a very special way of listening. Listening with attention.’
Our ears are pricked. The lower gallery is filled with a ‘Sensing Sound' installation. Built specifically to connect us to sounds we would normally block out, it ‘aims to teach us how to listen again’, says Dvash. The installation includes original sound works, translated into visual representations influenced by the movement of visitors.
The Upper Gallery houses over 50 objects designed from the 1960s to the present, divided into three categories: stationary, mobile, and interactive objects, which exemplify the conceptual shift from object design to the design of a user experience.
It's a change reflected by the museum's own, ever-growing emphasis on audience engagement. ‘The modern exhibit attender wants more than to just see, they want to understand,' Dvash explains. ‘“Sound and Matter in Design” does just that, it gives the visitor not just a didactic tour of the museum, but rather the whole experience.’
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Design Museum Holon website
ADDRESS
Design Museum Holon
Pinkhas Eilon St 8, Holon
5845400, Israel
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Elly Parsons is the Digital Editor of Wallpaper*, where she oversees Wallpaper.com and its social platforms. She has been with the brand since 2015 in various roles, spending time as digital writer – specialising in art, technology and contemporary culture – and as deputy digital editor. She was shortlisted for a PPA Award in 2017, has written extensively for many publications, and has contributed to three books. She is a guest lecturer in digital journalism at Goldsmiths University, London, where she also holds a masters degree in creative writing. Now, her main areas of expertise include content strategy, audience engagement, and social media.
-
Inside Dior’s ‘Gold House’ in Bangkok, a spectacular celebration of Thai art and craft
Daven Wu takes a trip to Bangkok to discover ‘Gold House’, a gilded new concept store from Dior which is rooted in both Parisian savoir-faire and artisanal Thai craft, featuring a café, gardens and showstopping gilded facade
By Daven Wu Published
-
Johanna Seelemann uses design as a tool to carve a future for the craft community of her homeland
Designer Johanna Seelemann tells us about her 'fascination for unravelling the objects that we might take for granted' and finding an answer to unite both craft and design
By Hugo Macdonald Published
-
Louis Fratino leans into queer cultural history in Italy
Louis Fratino’s 'Satura', on view at the Centro Pecci in Italy, engages with queer history, Italian landscapes and the body itself
By Sam Moore Published
-
Saul Steinberg: behind the scenes at Triennale Design Museum
Triennale Design Museum and publishing house Electa present ‘Saul Steinberg Milano New York’, a new exhibition (until 13 March 2022) that pays homage to the American artist through 350 works. Join us for a behind-the-scenes peek at it's installation
By Rosa Bertoli Last updated
-
Ten years of Muller Van Severen, at Design Museum Ghent
A new exhibition by Belgian design duo Muller Van Severen (until 6 March 2022) features a retrospective of the studio’s ten years as well as a curation of pieces from the Design Museum Ghent collections
By Rosa Bertoli Last updated
-
Noguchi show celebrates his reverence for Greece
Design show ‘Objects of Common Interest: Hard, Soft, and All Lit Up with Nowhere to Go’ opens in collaboration with Wallpaper* Designers of the Year, Objects of Common Interest, at the Noguchi Museum in Queens, New York (until 13 February 2022)
By Tilly Macalister-Smith Last updated
-
‘Design not for children, but for everyone’: Jewish Museum Berlin’s new play space
Olson Kundig architecture and design practice brings kids’ play space ANOHA Children’s World to life inside a vast former wholesale flower market, at the Jewish Museum Berlin
By Hannah Silver Last updated
-
A landscape of playful animals pops up at Design Museum Holon
Child-centric designer Sarit Shani Hay presents an imaginary natural landscape that references Ron Arad's Design Museum Holon architecture and is inhabited by soft, cushioned sea lions, seals and bears
By Rosa Bertoli Last updated
-
Charlotte Perriand’s life and work explored at London’s Design Museum
London’s Design Museum presents ‘Charlotte Perriand: The Modern Life’, an exhibition turned the spotlight on one of the most iconic creators of the 20th century
By Rosa Bertoli Last updated
-
Meet the Design Museum’s all-female Designers in Residence
The multidisciplinary cohort includes Enni-Kukka Tuomala, Abiola Onabule, Cynthia Voza Lusilu and Ioana Man, who developed a series of multidisciplinary projects with the Design Museum, responding to the theme of ‘Care'
By Rosa Bertoli Last updated
-
Design Museum's tribute to club culture reopens post lockdown
Art, photography, typography, shape shifting installations and music come together at Design Museum’s ‘Electronic: From Kraftwerk to The Chemical Brothers’
By Simon Mills Last updated