Curatorial Statement

Gathered in an empty warehouse in Buenos Aires, Argentina, “HACKING INDUSTRY” explores the intertwined relationship between design and industry. The collection, composed of stand-out pieces from exhibitions and projects curated over the last two years, investigates the possibilities and limitations of contemporary production processes and argues for a re-introduction of abstracted and playful experimentation in design, breaking the mould of contemporary commercial creation. This collection has been curated by Juan García Mosqueda, who, as founder and curator of contemporary design platform Chamber and the independent initiative QUICK TINY SHOWS, brings his passion for progressive art and design to highlight an alternative direction for design.

“HACKING INDUSTRY” brings together a talented group of designers from North and South America whose work speaks to an experimental, trial-and-error methodology of creation. Process is essential in this approach, with makers actively engaging with both successful and unsuccessful developments to achieve their end goal. As described in Mosqueda’s curatorial statement, the collection re-orients “Robert Smithson’s ‘abstract geology’ idea to one of ‘abstract technology’ as a possible methodology [allowing] these designers to incorporate not only standard, off-the-shelf products but also fairly boring/dumb manufacturing processes as a ‘scrambled museum where there is a text that contains limits and barriers that evade the rational, and social structures’ that confine design”. In doing so, the pieces reflect on the contemporary moment, speculating on common norms and making use of seemingly banal alterations.