Design Exhibition Scotland Two

The Second Edition

In May 2018, Design Exhibition Scotland launched at Lyon & Turnbull.

Celebrating exceptional functional objects for the everyday, Design Exhibition Scotland presented the work of over 20 designers and artists working in a range of materials and processes to create such indispensable items such as tables, chairs and lights.

Design Exhibition Scotland 2018 not only presented evidence of some of the many brilliant contemporary designers working in Scotland but also of a wide public audience who visited, who were clearly curious about contemporary making and thinking. Design Exhibition Scotland is delighted to present its second edition at Lyon & Turnbull in June 2019.

Namon Gaston and Peter Holmes | Oxbow Lounge Chair | installation view Design Exhibition Scotland 2018 |
The Oxbow Lounge Chair has been awarded a 2019 Design Guild Mark by The Furniture Makers' Company, London |
Photo: Ruth Clark

Design Exhibition Scotland is without doubt a pioneering project. Powered by a desire to champion design excellence and exploration, Design Exhibition Scotland 2019 will show the work of over 30 designers and artists. All are exploring ways design can enhance the way we live our lives. All are considering pertinent issues of function, production, sourcing and sustainability.

Drinking fountains were once are common sight in Britain’s towns and cities, a brilliant civic celebration of free and clean drinking water. Now with rightfully rising concerns about single-use plastic bottles, should we now not be re-considering the vital importance of the drinking fountain to refill our bottles? Glasgow designers Laura Aldridge and James Rigler are doing just this. They are creating a ceramic fountain for the modern age which will be debuted at DES 2019.

Andrew Miller | Twilight 6, 2019 | frosted perspex and metal | Photo: courtesy of the artist

And then there is Mirrl, a new solid material, crafted in Glasgow who will be collaborating with the celebrated London-based designer, Adam Nathaniel Furman to create a new range of sitting. While the Edinburgh-based, ever-exploratory Harry Morgan, who graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2014 will show vessels made of pewter, once a ubiquitous but now rarely seen material. At DES 2018 Morgan showed Sand Play, an intriguing column vessel that stood proud on a plinth in front of L & T’s neoclassical façade. Made in collaboration with Laing’s Foundry in Fife, it was an example of a time-honoured techniques being harnessed by contemporary practitioners. Moreover, Morgan, we are thrilled to announce, was recently selected for this year’s prestigious Loewe Craft Prize.

Frances Priest | Tiled Corridor, 2018 | installation view The Royal Edinburgh Hospital |
Photo: Shannon Tofts Photography

DES 2019 will also show design at work. Last year Alice Jacobs, a Glasgow-based designer, graduate of Glasgow School of Art and founder of Flux, debuted her Utility Stacker. A brilliantly pragmatic and pleasing chair, it was CNC cut (this is a ‘computer numerical controlled’ cutting machine) and made from FSC birch plywood. It caught the eye of Architecture & Design Scotland, a Scottish Government agency. A conversation took off and Jacobs was invited to tender for a job designing and producing furniture for a primary school in East Renfrewshire. She was successful and this spring Jacobs will deliver a specially designed, needs-specific furniture, developed through workshops with pupils and teachers to the school.

This summarises brilliantly the raison d’etre of Design Exhibition Scotland: to introduce outstanding designers to a wider world. DES 2019 will once again bring together outstanding practitioners and energetic thinkers to exchange ideas and celebrate the contemporary.