ELSEWHERE

Novalis Art Design is pleased to present Elsewhere, a new collection by design duo Batten and Kamp. When designing the pieces in this collection, Batten and Kamp tried to imagine them from an alternative universe, a world much like our own but just slightly different. Perhaps created by an alien race in a place where gravity, or materiality or memories work differently.

This collection is about exploring the concept of ‘Elsewhere’, of the many layers and connotations this word conjures up. There are many ‘elsewheres’ hidden within this exhibition. The main principle being that even though we project ourselves to a time or place to get away from the present, we always end up circling back to it. The word itself implies a sense of escapism. We want to run from the problems of our present and hence we go to this hypothetical fictional place that we conjure up. In a sense science fiction also presents a thought experiment to get away from present problems, and yet, the imagined world is never detached from the contemporary as it is an attempt to imagine solutions to current problems. We might also choose to conjure up an ‘elsewhere’ from our memories, a place from the past and yet, details are always blurry, never completely accurate, tinted by nostalgia. Those places from the past too, are to an extent imagined places, tinted by our current mood or outlook within our perspective. Hence, ‘elsewhere’ is a projection that always ends up circling back to present day, our here and now.