Atelier Van Lieshout presents "Darwin" | World Design Capital 2018 | Mexico City

April 4, 2018

Darwin is a functional sculpture by Dutch artist Joep van Lieshout – This large purple sperm is blown up to extreme proportion and one can enter at the end of the sperm, where there is a bed and small desk inside. While ‘Darwin’ implies power, status, expansion and reproduction, it reflects on social Darwinism ideas and the need for survival in all aspects of our lives, whether biological or corporate. Through the Darwin project, Atelier Van Lieshout conspires to explore notions of evolution. The concept of habitat and Darwinian theory are interpreted through the media of design and sculpture, architecture and experiment.

Darwin is part of a group of functional sculptures by Atelier Van Lieshout that thematise around the functionality and aesthetics of sculpture in public spaces in an inventive and humorous way. Amorphous forms that connect up the issues of housing, provisioning, waste disposal, locomotion, and fertilization form the core of Atelier Van Lieshout’s works. Alongside the ready-to-use furniture such as functioning berths, living capsules, or bar counters, the objects often fulfil communal functions such as that of a field hospital or medical laboratory.

Darwin has been presented as part of the World Design Capital CDMX 2018, which took place in Mexico City, March 2018. The sculpture has been installed for public use at Espacio CDMX, located at Av. de los Compositores #4, Bosque de Chapultepec II Secc, 11100. Additionally, Joep van Lieshout was a speaker in the International Design Forum, 6 March 2018, at Palacio de Bellas Artes, speaking on the topic of The Future of Cities.

For more information about the World Design Capital 2018, please click here.

To watch video of Joep van Lieshout speaking at the International Design Forum, please click here.