As part of Brussels Design September 2024.
The term ‘Czech glass’ resonates to my generation with the sound of crystal, popular in wealthy families. I once won a chocolate-coloured vase with gold veins at the amusement park (I was unreasonably lucky in my youth, even if I went to the casino to try my luck). Therefore, I was particularly enthusiastic about the Designblok Cosmos project brought by the Prague Design Festival to Brussels Design September (12-30 September 2024).
The Brussels festival provided the Czech designers with a very good location – the Tour&Taxis site – so the glittering, slightly larger than usual camion looks just like it does in the royal park of the Prague Palace, where the Czech sister festival is taking place (opening on the 1-st of October).
‘Designblok Cosmos’ is a project by Czech designers working with glass. We learnt that exists uranium glass – coloured with uranium compounds. The effect of such a coating is unique. Upon entering the Czech pavilion, one lady exclaimed ‘Vertigo!’. The sensations in the mirrored hall are cosmic and strong. An internationally renowned designer from the entire exceptionally talented team is Maxim Velcovsky. His ‘Perfect Day’ is my favourite of the exhibition (on the photo, but you have to see it live).
Jacub Berdych Karpelis, a glass sculptor from Bohemia (the European Mecca of glassblowing tradition), is the author of the most epathetic art object ‘4All Space Dix’. You won’t have a hard time recognising this blown and cut glass installation in the photo. His daughter is enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp this year and we met Jacub by chance at the KMSKA Museum and didn’t miss the chance to talk to the artist.
‘My work thematizes the expansiveness of humankind, and I use it to comment on modern-day prophets, such as Elon Musk, who are colonizing cosmos. I understand the need for scientific exploration, and humanity’s desire to go beyond, but in this case it is obviously about raw minerals. There is nothing else left to plunder here on Earth, the insides of the planet have been devoured, everything belongs to somebody.’
