Once again, Elementa visited the annual Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, and below are three favourite exhibitions from this year’s edition. The selected exhibitions reflect on the role and agency of the designer, and on ways of performing critique.

Mycela, founded by Sondre Eng, Renée Isabel Jung and Maria Aaslund is an Oslo-based mycelium studio and lab founded in 2020. On a warm summer day, Elementa visited Mycela at their studio at Tøyen in Oslo and got to know their concept a bit better.

In a mini-series of interviews, Maren Bang of the Elementa crew presents the work of some of her fellow alumni from Design Academy Eindhoven. Leo Maher is a British designer currently based in the Netherlands. His work collects research from material cultures, past and present, and the narrative they present tethered to, before reformatting archives into new physical pieces. Read our conversation with the designer, tapping into legend, queering canons, and the agency of the archiver.

Elementa visited Milan during Milan Design Week earlier this month. More than a hundred different events and venues filled the city from the 6th to the 12th of June, and here are some of this year’s highlights!

In a mini-series of short interviews, Maren Bang of the Elementa crew presents the work of some of her fellow alumni from Design Academy Eindhoven.

Delphine Lejeune is a visual designer and material researcher working experimentally across 2D and 3D printed surfaces. Her curiosities lie within designed objects, and how they critically shape our social behaviors.

During Oslo Open 2022, our friends at Novooi will present the exhibition “Above and Below” at Kruttverket.

Featured artists: Ann Kristin Einarson, Karen Klim, Lillian Tørlen, Martine Poppe, Mingshu Li, Olia Gorohova, Pernille Sandberg, Rasmus Stride, Silja Axelsen.

Carlos Sfeir is a Chilean architect, designer and artist currently based in Berlin. A little while back we had a talk about the rational and the poetic, forces of nature, and the consequences of colonialism. And about design and arts potential for being a trojan horse - bringing insight and perspectives within conventional systems.

Benedetta Pompili is an Italian interdisciplinary designer currently based in Amsterdam. Her practice is focused on a dedication to earthwork ethics and local narratives, and she explores making processes, rethinking them for sustainability aims. We had a conversation with the designer about savior faire, toxicity and the dialogue between maker and material.