A 3Dprint created as part of Alexa Pollmann's residency at the Design Museum, London 2015.

About

The Designers in Residence programme at the Design Museum is a core part of the museum's activity, and exists to provide practising designers, across any discipline, with time and space away from their regular environment to reflect, research and consider new ways of developing their practice.

"This year's Designers in Residence programme invites four designers to respond to the theme of ‘migration’. It can be a reflection of objects or processes that imply movement, or transition, of shifting and cross-fertilising cultures, or of mobility."- Deyan Sudjic, Design Museum Director #DesignersinResidence

Artist - Alexa Pollmann

"My key to the residency was the brief: migration challenges basic political concepts such as borders, while design can discuss the resulting cultural complexities. We tend to focus on the problems of globalisation and migration, and the Design Museum offers the opportunity to look at those topics from a different angle. I have been working on this project for a while now and to see it valued by an institution such as the Design Museum is a massive incentive. My working title is Culturing an inter-nation. I present four characters who live in an indivicracy - a fictional variation of democracy that I've made up. This government resembles a social network that 'follows around' as its citizens lead a migratory life, and neglects to fulfil the territorial manner of 'settled' statehoods. The exhibition will stage the national dance and dress and convey details about the history of this newly emerged statehood. These cultural elements describe unity, but I want visitors to join in and learn the national dances as part of an interactive installation - hence celebrating and imagining a life in motion.

I currently collaborate with a choreographer, dancers, a programmer and a filmmaker so I spend a lot of time adjusting and directing the project to fit the different media. Culture is ultimately an experience and I hope to create this by working in a holistic manner. However, I then have to hide in my studio from time to time to work on the physical pieces such as masks and other elements of their dress.

The overall aim is to challenge people's notion of nationality: the 'Greek' dance sirtaki was invented for the film Zorba the Greek and is a great example of how we invent and design national identities, so culturing the inter-nation aims to have a similar effect... I see this as a long-term project for which I will develop more and more details over time and who knows, maybe it will forge a real culture someday. For now, there is a graphic novel I am working on that might turn into a series, but my favourite idea is to see this piece performed live as a digital participatory opera."