Media Overview
FREITAG ad absurdum – Milano Design Week 2021
HIGH-RES PHOTO DOWNLOAD ARTIFACT Exhibition
FREITAG x CIRCLE – Milano Design Week 2021
FREITAG was invited by the interdisciplinary studio 2050+ and Slam Jam to join the Circle project. Circle is an ongoing digital think-tank on multiculturalism, spatial justice and the changed climatic regime. Taking Milan as a blueprint to investigate planetary conditions, Circle invites contributions from everyone from everywhere. The program will unfold in two moments during the Milano Design Week 2021:
Introduction to Circle & public event: Tuesday, September 7th from 18:00 till 21:00 a selected group of contributors will discuss their projects on stage. Among them FREITAG Creative Director and Culture Coach Pascal Dulex. The talks and workshops, moderated by 2050+, will be open to a limited number of visitors. Full program and subscription here.
FREITAG ad absurdum exhibition: Originally shown in 2015 at the mudac – Museum of Design and Applied Contemporary Arts – in Lausanne, the exhibition “FREITAG ad absurdum feat. Frank and Patrik Riklin” focuses, in the light of the “absurdisation of the FREITAG value creation chain” and the manifesto derived from it, on attitudes to consumer behaviour in our society. The project was not limited to the museum, but also took place in public spaces. It was concerned with questions of recycling and upcycling, participation and alternative production circuits. For the Milan Design Week 2021 FREITAG re-recycled the ad absurdum exhibition at Artifact. A space where art, design and fashion blend to shape new cultural experiences comes together.
Event information:
FREITAG ad absurdum exhibition
Exhibition dates: 4. - 10. September 2021
Opening hours: 10:00 - 19:00
Location: Artifact c/o Spazio Maiocchi, Via A. Maiocchi 7, 20129 Milan
Circle panel event: talks and workshops
Tuesday, 7. September 2021
Hours: 18:00 - 20:30
Location: Spazio Maiocchi, Via A. Maiocchi 7, 20129 Milan
>>> registration for the public panel of Tuesday the 7th available here <<<
>>> limited seats are available - pls subscribe only if participating <<<
About FREITAG: Since 1993, FREITAG has been injecting used truck tarps with new life by transforming them into functional bags and accessories. The Zurich-based bag manufacturer thinks and acts in cycles and supplies urban individualists the world over with a choice of over 80 different products as well as biodegradable textiles grown in Europe, called F-ABRIC. The company also runs 28 FREITAG Stores, one of which is based in Milan. FREITAG has not only committed to the circular economy but is also organized in circles: in 2016, the company, which still belongs to the Freitag brothers and these days employs around 250 people, abandoned the classical hierarchical structure and replaced it with Holacracy, a form of organization based on self-management.
About Circle: Circle is an ongoing digital think tank that gives voice to the most pressing issues of our time, with an eye on multiculturalism and the changed climate regime. The aim of the platform is to provoke vibrant conversations and to ignite positive change. The genesis of Circle lies in an in-depth research conducted by Milan-based multidisciplinary agency 2050+ with the support of the fashion, music and culture retail platform Slam Jam, that looks at the city of Milan as a concentrate of contemporary and future challenges – hence, as an ideal blueprint to investigate global conditions. www.circle.slamjam.com
Media release long version:
FREITAG AD ABSURDUM
CARTE BLANCHE TO THE FREITAG BROTHERS FEAT. FRANK & PATRIK RIKLIN
Having been given carte blanche by mudac – Museum of Design and Applied Contemporary Arts – in Lausanne, Markus and Daniel Freitag have joined forces with conceptual artists Frank & Patrik Riklin, known for their offbeat practice outside of ordinary artistic circles. The four brothers share a mindset and similar fundamental principles underlie their work: actions centred on resources, the enjoyment of social interaction, and a cyclical way of thinking and acting.
Their project is not confined to the museum and largely takes place in public space. The Freitag and Riklin brothers set off in early summer 2015 to meet users of FREITAG bags, which are made from used truck tarpaulins. They invited them to take part in an action which pushes the manufacturing process for their products to the edge of absurdity: to give up their bags and let them return to being a lorry tarpaulin. A hundred bags were garnered from around the world.
In the Zurich factory where every FREITAG bag is cut, the four brothers unpicked the bags they had gathered in, pieced and soldered them together. The lorry tarpaulin was transformed… into a lorry tarpaulin, pushing the FREITAG upcycling principle ad absurdum. The new multicoloured patchwork tarpaulin was mounted on a truck and the Freitag and Riklin brothers set off in August on a road trip around Switzerland. They engaged in dialogue with people in every region about consumption and production in the 21st century with action such as getting people to make soup from the leftovers found on the various floors of an apartment building.
These experiences and encounters gave birth to objects that are both surprising and original, made, in turn, from the re-re-recycled lorry tarp: these include a free-rider seat, a shopping bag prosthesis and even a compost catapult, then tested on the people of Lausanne. This ironic take on recycling, extended to infinity, frees up the very serious position on consumption and our contemporary use of resources taken by the Freitag and Riklin brothers.