Date
2016 - 2017

An exhibition at MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) New York in 1972 curated by Emilio Ambasz 'The New Domestic Landscape – Italy' was a seminal moment in Design history. A series of prototype environments and installations by leading Italian designers would reflect upon changing domestic living patterns within contemporary society. This hypothetical existence included, ‘permanent nomadism’, ‘life without objects’, and ‘life without work’. The exhibition is generally regarded as a statement that design in Italy was moving beyond being an applied art and was becoming a language capable of making a commentary on reality.

While we have witnessed much of the prophecy of the exhibition of 1972, the domestic landscape is once again the site of potential radical change impacted by the inevitable changes in the environmental and contextual shift of our healthcare services.

HOSPITAbLe is a collection that challenges and reflects upon an ambiguous future domestic landscape that presents hybrid functionality and confused visual language and soundscape. A transient world of alien objects that not only challenge trust, but prohibit control and access. New objects defined by emerging technologies that at times attempt to hide and camouflage. Providers of these future objects are ever more concerned with our health and safety, nudging us into behaviour change but fearful of litigation. An interconnected landscape within which information is ubiquitous, incomplete and confusing. Objects that help, support, betray and confront our own mortality.

The HOSPITAbLe collection has been exhibited at the museum of Scotland, The Theatrum Anatomicum, Amsterdam, NL (http://waag.org/en/event/exhibition-hospitable-collection) UMPRUM gallery, Prague, Czech Republic (https://www.umprum.cz/web/en/umprum/paul-chamberlain-new-domestic-landscapes-geographical-shift-of-healthcare-6455)

Researchers involved

Professor Paul Chamberlain - Co-Director C3RI, Head of Art & Design Research Centre, Director of Lab4Living and Director of Design Futures