100% Norway – by Bergen Academy of Art and Design

Since 2003, the 100% Norway exhibition has been one of the most exciting mainstays of the London Design Festival, showcasing the best of Norwegian furniture and product design to an international audience of professionals, aficionados and the public.

For the 2014 festival, the Norwegian Centre for Design and Architecture, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Royal Norwegian Embassy in London have selected the Bergen Academy of Art and Design (KHiB) to curate the exhibition, which will juxtapose the work of established designers with the best pieces created by Norway’s current generation of design students.

From 18–21 September, 100% Norway will occupy the ground floor and terrace of East London’s Old Truman Brewery. Designed by KHiB professors Dave Vikøren and Petter Bergerud, the look and feel of the exhibition draws inspiration from Norway’s untamed natural landscape, its vast stretch of ocean and rugged mountainscape. This provides the ideal backdrop to a wide-ranging exhibition focused on the themes of curiosity, experimentation and innovation.

Concept
This year, Bergen Academy of Art and Design has chosen to present an overview of the whole design process – a ‘lifetime of design’ – from education at BA and MA level to the height of a professional career. To achieve this, an expertly curated selection of student works from Norway’s higher education institutions will be exhibited alongside the work of seasoned designers and manufacturers at the peak of their powers.

100% Norway’s seminar programme for 2014 will be informed by the Academy’s dedication to development and evolution in the design sphere, touching on the processes behind – and the results of – innovation-focused artistic research, and drawing on its recent exhibitions in Seoul, Helsinki and Stockholm themed around these topics.

Content
The products on display throughout 100% Norway will represent the finest and most exciting examples of new Norwegian design, combining pieces already in production with prototypes of the products of tomorrow, with an emphasis on furniture and space.

The exhibition will be divided into three elements, with the products in each selected by a panel of design professionals.

1. Experiments
Dedicated to mock-ups and prototypes made by young Norwegian designers, this part of the exhibition showcases projects emerging from experiments with different materials, tools and techniques. Sometimes the result of this process may be just a valuable learning experience, but on other occasions, this exploratory stage proves to be the first visual piece in the process of getting a product to market.

2. Exploration
This selection of student projects from the design MA programmes offered by various design universities and academies in Norway gives an insight into the creative and material interests of Norway’s designers of the future. Students at Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Oslo School of Architecture and Design, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Oslo and Akershus University College and Bergen Academy of Art and Design have been invited to submit their work for consideration in this category.

3. Results
The final element of the exhibition presents an overview of the best contemporary work produced by professional designers living, studying or working in Norway or native Norwegians currently working internationally.