It's difficult to sum up in one sentence what the "Hello World!" exhibition at Thailand Creative and Design Center (TCDC) is all about. It's logos and posters. It's product design. It's technology. It's chocolate. It's innovations in various fields from the past 50 or so years.
The ‘Hello World!’ exhibition at Thailand Creative and Design Center.
The exhibition's main concept, "How Do We Design The future?", offers a little insight into its purpose _ predicting and guiding consumer trends for the next few years.
"The exhibition talks about various trends which have happened recently," says Pichit Virankabutra, TCDC event and exhibition director. "It anticipates the way of life and consumption trends for the next year or two. Viewers will get to see and adapt these ideas for their own design of the future."
The exhibition is separated into four sections. The first, "Same, But Different", focuses on personal identity in an increasingly borderless world, using New York City as an example. Many unique elements of the city are featured, from an "I Heart NY" logo designed by Milton Glaser to The Humans Of New York, a book by Brandon Stanton that collects photographs and interesting stories from the city's residents.
Exhibition curator Nunnaree Panichkul says "the spirit" of a city like New York is what separates it from other places.
"The creation of this spirit doesn't happen overnight," says Nunnaree. "It's built of various conditions and elements. This section is like a challenge or a question posed to viewers about what the spirit of a place is made of."
Another of the exhibition's sections, "Adopting With Adaptation", looks at the process of creating products and services.
"There's a process of adapting and merging together ideas," says Nunnaree. "When people move, they have taken their spirit and their individuality along, so there is a clash of ideas through a creative process."
The "sticky rice burger" is on display here, showing a fusion of Western influence and local taste. Also on display are chocolate products from Italian manufacturer Ferrero. One, an egg-shaped chocolate shell with a toy inside, is for sale across Europe, while another, for sale in tropical countries like Malaysia and Ecuador, adapts to different climates by keeping the chocolate and the toy separate.
"New Value from Old Things, New Answers To Old Problems" deals with the strategy of consumerism.
A USB typewriter with an iPad dock, designed by Jack Zylkin, shows how we can keep the old and build the new. Zylkin modified the typewriter into a computer keyboard. The iPad screen substitutes paper.
"This is a concrete example of the merge between the analogue and the digital," says Nunnaree. "You don't have to choose right or left _ all can actually go together."
A home genetic test, called 23&Me, is also on show. Named after the 23 pairs of chromosomes in a human cell, this self-test allows people to search their genealogy and check for potential health risks and disorders.
The last section, "A Unified World", focuses on the globular roles of various innovations, from the shopping cart symbol on internet sites to Bitcoin, a digital crypto-currency.
"This section questions us about what we should do in a changing world," says Nunnaree. "It challenges us as to what we should do to unify our world in terms of budget, production and creativity."
A short visit wouldn't be enough to appreciate everything the exhibition has to offer. It's entertaining, but also thought-provoking.
"We invite viewers to ... challenge themselves in terms of the concepts," Nunnaree says. "The exhibition is an example ... that a lot of ideas aren't just wishful thinking, but can be made real."
"Hello World!" runs until March 23, Gallery 2, TCDC, 6th floor, The Emporium shopping complex.
Two types of chocolate products from Italian manufacturer Ferrero.
Sticky rice burger.
Bitcoin, a digital crypto-currency.
