The InsetTM’s insulin pump makes injections easier and less invasive for diabetes sufferers

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Design "S": Art of Beneficial Design - Contemporary Design from Sweden
Museum of Contemporary Art Calgary
Thursday, September 6 - Friday, October 26

More in: Visual Arts

A garbage can that swells out as it fills up, a metal bowl that can be sent in an envelope and a MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machine that scans and sorts timber are just a few of the strange yet practical design inventions on display for one more week at the Triangle Gallery. Design “S”: Art of Beneficial Design is a circulating exhibition of winners and nominees of the Swedish Design Award organized by Svensk Form, the world’s oldest (founded in 1845) crafts and design society. This award celebrates “creative solutions to problems” in an efficient, affordable and attractive way.

One of the exhibition’s winning designs, a sturdy-looking rescue boat a bit larger than a Sea-Doo, with bright red and yellow colours, can be seen from the street through the gallery’s large windows.

Jacek Malek, the Triangle’s curator, first approached Svensk Form with the idea of bringing one of its previous design exhibitions to Calgary in 2003. The show was titled Design for Every Body. Since its exhibition at the Triangle in 2004, Malek has been committed to bringing internationally acclaimed designs to Calgarians and becoming one of the few Canadian institutions to provide exhibition space for design and architectural creations.

It has been a fruitful collaboration so far, particularly by bringing a designer’s point of view to the art of installing exhibitions. For example, instead of having the objects rest on white pedestals that are meant to disappear into the background, as we see in most art shows, the curators of Design “S” have either placed the designs on, or framed them by, the bright, sky-blue crates in which they were shipped. The presence of these dual-function crates gives the space an unrefined and lively warehouse effect that is, again, an unexpected touch for an “art” exhibition.

It is also nice to be allowed to touch some of the more tactile exhibits in the show, like the attractive display of shiny, colourful seat covers and textured floor mats created specifically for the Volvo YCC, the concept car completely designed by women for women. In addition, children visiting the exhibition can play with BRIO’s new vibrantly coloured plush and wooden toy designs that have been created in answer to its goal to modernize the 123-year-old company. However, the toys’ new designs seems so sleek that I wonder who BRIO is targeting with their campaign, children or fashionable parents.

While some of the nominees and award-winners of this prestigious design honour might exude a more whimsical raison d’être, others have been built with a serious purpose in mind. One design invention that could have a positive outcome on the health and quality of life for the more than two million Canadian diabetes sufferers is the InsetTM, a small circular and colourful patch contraption that is actually “the world’s first infusion set for insulin pump users in which the infusion set and the injection device come in a single sterile unit.” Not only is this device more practical and less invasive, it is also less painful than the traditional needle injection.

This exhibition offers Calgarians a rare glimpse of current international trends in the global design industry. And if you were wondering, the answer is yes — there is one IKEA design winner in the house. The objects from Design “S”: Art of Beneficial Design will be packed away in their blue crates just one week from now, so make sure to drop by and see for yourself why these Swedish designs deserve recognition.