Install imagery for "Droog30: Design or non-design?" at Triennale Milano

Download the media kit, including new install imagery here.
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Droog30 – Design or Non-design? celebrates 30 years of Droog, the loosely-formed Dutch design collective led by Renny Ramakers and Gijs Bakker that made its international debut in Milan in 1993.
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​Meaning ‘dry’ in Dutch, Droog subverted the norms of form and function to push the boundaries of design by reappropriating found objects, making the ordinary extraordinary and introducing new approaches to designing that redefined design itself. Often employing a ‘dry’ wit that has now become mainstream, Droog was arguably the last of what might be considered a movement in design—a claim predicated on the fact that what soon followed was the rise of the internet and its decentralising effect on design discourse.
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​Curated by Maria Cristina Didero and designer Richard Hutten, a founding Droog member, Droog30 includes a selection of Droog objects by Tejo Remy, Marcel Wanders, Hutten and others within an installation of comments crowdsourced through social media that together help tell the collective’s story. In this analog representation of today’s online environment, Droog30 reflects on the group’s impact on design while implicitly asking if such a collective influence would be possible within today’s cacophonous digital landscape.
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​Following Milan, Droog30. Design or Non-design? will open on May 2, 2023 at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam.

About Nieuwe Instituut ​
​Nieuwe Instituut is the Netherlands’ national museum and institute for architecture, design and digital culture. Based in Rotterdam, a global centre for design innovation, the institute’s mission is to embrace the power and potential of new thinking, exploring the past, present and future ideas in order to imagine, test and enact a better tomorrow. Encouraging visitors of all ages to question, rethink and contribute, the institute’s exhibitions, public programmes, research and wide-reaching national and international initiatives provide a testing ground for collaboration with leading designers, thinkers and diverse audiences, critically addressing the urgent questions of our times.
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​In addition to housing the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning, the institute manages the 1933 Sonneveld House, a leading example of Dutch Functionalist architecture, as part of its campus in Rotterdam’s Museumpark.

In 2022, the Nieuwe Instituut became the world’s first Zoöp, a groundbreaking model through which all areas of the museum’s operations and programming are informed by its impact and benefit to other forms of life. The institute also serves as a commissioner of the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, and in 2023, will act as the Artistic Director of the London Design Biennale. In 2022 Het Nieuwe Instituut curated the official Dutch entry to the Triennale di Milano, winning the exhibition’s Golden Bee Award.

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