Kick-off DDW 2019
The Symbiocene Forest

At the 18^th of October, we officially opened the gates of “The Symbiocene Forest” and gave the starting signal for Dutch Design Week 2019 in BioArt Village. Attendees were exhibiting artists, BioArt partners, friends and many other curious minds.

A warm welcome was given not only by BioArt director Jalila Essaïdi, but also by our respected guest Prince Pieter-Christiaan of Orange-Nassau, van Vollenhoven, who kindly showed his support for our past and future projects and the further development of our BioArt Village.

To introduce all attendants to BioArt’s theme of 2019: water, four guest speakers reflected on water from their own expertise: Ad van Riel, director of REASeuro, opened everyone’s eyes to the global issue of ammunition present in many bodies of water, dumped during WWI and WWII. Following, Erik de Ridder, watergrave of Waterschap De Dommel, reflected on the future of water management. All the way from Hungary, BioPolus director István Kenyeres went into depth on the unlimited possibilities of circular urban systems on earth, whereas Christophe Lasseur, manager of the MELiSSA project (ESA) explained how space research can help to realize biobased and circular economic models, for example in the water sector.

The majority of the topics discussed recurred in the preview of the short educative film ‘Think Like an Astronaut’ by Studio Voordenberg, which premiered during this kick-off event and was showing in our exhibition throughout the Dutch Design Week.

As diverse, yet at complementary as the topics of the talks were, as are the works of the talents participating at our exhibition for DDW 2019: the Symbiocene Forest. In the latter part of this kick-off event, all exposing talents were introduced to the public and given the opportunity to present their work, after which the exhibition was officially opened.

We would like to thank all guest speakers and attendees for this inspiring opening of a week full of exhibitions, talks and events. Referring to the theme of Dutch Design Week 2019: If not now, then when? We hope that the talks as well as the works in our exhibition have raised awareness on the given that we should change our behavior and need to work towards new ways to treat our seas and water management and have provided insights in the next steps that we could take collectively and individually.