Nordic-Baltic Design and Craft Collaboration by Adorno was one of the projects in 2020 that had to adapt to the circumstances caused by COVID-19. They did so by reinventing their plans for the London Design Festival in September 2020. Instead of exhibiting design items on-site, Adorno decided to revolutionize the way in which we experience online design and art.
The plans for the project were innovative from the start, with a digital exhibition with objects transformed into 3D-models , as a first time to use a new 3D-technology for a digital exhibition. With this technology Adorno encouraged the viewer to engage in a smartphone virtual reality, in which the viewer could place design items in his or her own home.
As it became clear that the physical exhibition for London Design Week could not be produced as planned, the project switched over to producing a full online experience. Adorno produced curatorial themes and scenographies for the virtual collections, invited designers and pieces to be presented, produced 3D-models, edited short presentation films of the designers and created interactive-virtual environments for each of the eight Nordic and Baltic collections presented.
Beside the 8 design collections from the Nordic-Baltic region 6 additional countries are presenting virtual design collections on the same platform. During London Design Festival all collections were presented by the curators in guided tours, produced as online interviews.
COVID-19 is also present in the theme of the exhibition, The new reality. As the curatorial statement of the exhibition describes it:
”Awareness of the global ecological, political, economic, and social crisis we are threatened by has been furthered by the uncertainties and fears caused by the pandemic. It is more apparent than ever that we need to rethink and adapt the way we live. Luckily, the readiness to create a new and better reality is greater than ever.”