Sharing stories about what water means to you in a small and safe environment. That is what our Tea Ceremony was about on the Wednesday of the Dutch Design Week.

This year’s overall theme at BioArt has been: Water. Hence, all participants of our Dutch Design Week exhibition have presented a work inspired by water in various ways. Besides displaying design, we took the chance to optimize our relaxing forest environment to create a safe space amongst the DDW turbulence with a tea ceremony, guided by one of our DDW makers, Monique van Gemert Smulders.

Driven by the urge to connect people in times of impending digital isolation, Monique created the artwork ‘Ontmoeten’: ‘Meeting’. She had spent the last months crafting teacups in similar design to ancient Asian earthenware teacups. On the 23rd of October, we organized a tea ceremony in collaboration with IamNL. Together, we gathered a group of diverse individuals consisting of DDW visitors and acquaintances of IamNL and BioArt Laboratories.

Together, we shared stories about what the subject of water means to you. Everyone had a different feeling and idea by the subject which created an atmosphere where participators found it exciting to share their stories and learn from the other ones. The one point where everyone agreed on is that water is part of our existence and life.

Next to all the inspiring stories that were shared it was also a nice way to relax from the busy Dutch design week and take a moment for yourself.