The Premsela Design Forum on Repairing

Recycling is a contemporary code word people often use when talking about responsible, conscious production. At its Milan design forum on Wednesday 22 April, Premsela, Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion, will focus attention on an all-but-forgotten alternative path to reuse: repairingbroken and damaged items.Renowned speakers including Piet Hein Eek (designer), Corinne Poux-Bernard (Director of Innovations, Hermes), Satyendra Pakhale (culturalnomad) and Joanna van der Zanden (Artistic Director, Platform21), led bymoderator Marco Bevolo (independent author), will share their views on the value of repair in the context of the global economic crisis. The Premsela Design Forum will be introduced by the Dutch Minister of Culture, Ronald Plasterk.Repairing is environmentally friendly, but it also changes the relationship between object and user from superficial to enduring and unique. To repairis to restore and renew. When a missing or broken part is replaced, aproduct’s character can change radically. Countless repair manuals andlinks to repair sites can be found on Planet Green and YouTube. At the Premsela Design Forum, our point of departure will be the cultural andsocial aspects of repair.Stop Recycling. Start Repairing.“Make your products live longer! Repairing means taking the opportunity togive your product a second life. Don’t ditch it, stitch it! Don’t end it, mend it! Repairing is not anti-consumption. It is anti-needlessly throwing thingsaway.”This is the first line of the Repair Manifesto written by the Amsterdam designcentre Platform21 for its project Platform21 = Repairing. The manifesto has P.O. Box 75905NL–1070 AX Amsterdam Prinses Irenestraat 19NL–1077 WT AmsterdamThe Netherlands Telephone +31 20 3449 449Fax +31 20 3449 443info@premsela.orgpremsela.org been disseminated and picked up by weblogs, designers and consumer programmes. In addition, 20,000 copies will be distributed during 2009 Milan Design Week. Through an exhibition, workshops, lectures, repair clinicsand a competition, Platform21 = Repairing investigates how repairing can become a contemporary activity again. The project runs through 30 August2009. Platform21 is an initiative of Premsela and ING Real Estate. For more information, see www.platform21.com .  Premsela Design Forum on RepairingMilan Design Week, Wednesday 22 April 2009Romeo Gigli CafeVia Angelo Fumagalli 6, Milan (metro: M2, stop: Porta Genova / tram 2 /bus 74)Doors: 6.30pmDiscussion: 7.00pm (preceded by an introduction by Dutch Minister ofCulture Ronald Plasterk)Cocktails: 8.30–10.00pmFree admissionDesign.nl Launches Special Mobile ToolIn 2009, exhibiting designers and brands from the Netherlands will once again be amply represented in Milan. Through Design.nl, Premsela ismaking their exhibitions accessible to journalists and other visitors. Essentialinformation will be available at Design.nl/salone from April 2009. This yearfor the first time, the site will be viewable by mobile telephone throughMobile.design.nl. With the help of Google Maps, Design.nl/salone willimmediately let you see where the exhibitions are and assemble your ownselection. And of course, Design.nl will provide daily updates from Milanduring Design Week and afterward.About PremselaPremsela, Dutch Platform for Design and Fashion, has worked to improve the cultural climate for design in the Netherlands since 2002. We do this through lectures, discussions, exhibitions, research and publications in the Netherlands and abroad. In the coming years, Premsela will operate longterm programmes in the areas of heritage and history, globalisation,and amateurism. Premsela is the publisher of Morf (www.morf.nl), the Netherlands’ largest design magazine, and the international web portal Design.nl. www.premsela.org