Bridging Minds

While developing Bridging Minds, guest curator Miriam van der Lubbe chose three anchor points that give further direction to the exhibition. Here, Van der Lubbe outlines the context of the exhibition and explains how design is interwoven with the Van Abbemuseum and its collection.

The Van Abbemuseum collection

The Van Abbemuseum has a tradition of critical thinking, pioneering and research: it addresses questions about art and society in an experimental way. In this sense, the museum’s art collection resonates with the field of design in many ways, and over the years the works in the collection have inspired numerous designers.

Edelkoort collection

In 2022, the museum acquired about 50 design objects from the collection of Lidewij Edelkoort. This acquisition marked a turning point in the museum's collection policy. Whereas the design objects were initially considered part of the art collection, rather than a separate department, the wish gradually emerged to give design a more prominent place within the collection as a whole. Bridging Minds is therefore a further exploration of the place of design in the museum, and of the relationship between the Van Abbemuseum and the world of design.

Interweaving art and design

Bridging Minds deliberately interweaves the discipline of design with the museum’s art collection. This broadens the museum's vocabulary: art and design often address the same questions, but do so using different means and methods. The boundaries between art and design are blurring: both disciplines imagine, question, and sometimes disrupt, and both allow alternative approaches to take root in everyday use, infrastructure, and rituals. By displaying the works side by side, a space emerges where ideas and proposals can move towards doing, building and experimenting.

Unique design profile

The exhibition also aims to make an initial proposal for developing a unique ‘design profile’ for the Van Abbemuseum. Design features in the collections of various Dutch museums, such as the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Each collection has its own emphasis and each collection policy is guided by different considerations. In this region in particular, there is an opportunity to carve out a distinctive profile for design within the Van Abbemuseum.

Building a collection

In this way, Bridging Minds functions as a collection-building incubator. The remarkable objects from the Edelkoort collection represent only a small part of the design domain. The exhibition deliberately zooms out, orienting itself towards the broader field of design. It opts for a wider reach in both time and approach: there is room for current projects as well as for earlier speculations and pioneers who helped shape the field. This historical spread helps to calibrate the standards we use. What seemed futuristic in 1995 may now hold up a mirror to our present condition. By presenting older and newer voices side by side, a framework is created against which future acquisitions can be assessed: which projects offer scope for action, which make a difference in the social fabric, and which open up unexpected connections with the art collection?

While developing Bridging Minds, guest curator Miriam van der Lubbe chose three anchor points that give further direction to the exhibition. Here, Van der Lubbe explores the connection between design and the Eindhoven region in more depth.

The connection between design and the Eindhoven region is strong and deeply rooted. Eindhoven is known as the unofficial design capital of the Netherlands. With the annual event Dutch Design Week, the presence of an organisation such as Dutch Design Foundation, educational institutions like Design Academy Eindhoven and the Technical University, and a thriving ecosystem of companies, labs and creative makers, the city and the wider region are a breeding ground for experimentation and innovation.

Close connections

Many of the projects in Bridging Minds are directly or indirectly linked to Eindhoven and its surroundings. Some designers grew up or studied here, others live and work in the region or maintain close ties with local partners. The connection is therefore not merely geographical, but part of a shared ecosystem in which knowledge and creativity circulate. The proximity of educational institutions, high-tech companies, makerspaces, and social initiatives allows for a direct connection between ideas and their realisation. Bridging Minds places this characteristic in the spotlight: the exhibition does not wish to revel in regionalism, but rather wants to show what can be achieved in a region when people succeed in connecting across the boundaries of disciplines and sectors.

Culture of collaboration

This regional dynamic operates on several levels. On the one hand, there is the tangible infrastructure: companies that facilitate or produce prototypes, research institutes that open doors, studios, workshops and social initiatives that test designs in practice. On the other hand, there is the culture of collaboration that characterises the region. A pragmatic curiosity prevails here, with few hard boundaries between disciplines or sectors: people are accustomed to exchanging knowledge and experimenting together. In such a climate, design takes on the role of connector and catalyst: it brings people together, helps to form new coalitions, and translates complex questions into workable proposals.

While developing Bridging Minds, guest curator Miriam van der Lubbe chose three anchor points that give further direction to the exhibition. Here, Van der Lubbe explains why the exhibition invites visitors to view the impact of design through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals.

The United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) together form a plan to make the world fairer, healthier, and more sustainable by 2030. Design can play a role in this, sometimes on a modest scale, sometimes with larger ambitions. Bridging Minds invites you to view the works through the lens of the SDGs. Which goals do they touch upon? What forms of positive impact become tangible?

Through an SDG lens

The SDGs provide a shared language for urgent societal challenges. In the exhibition, they do not function as an instrument for direct assessment, but as a lens that invites us to consider the role of design in this broader context. This creates a richer understanding of what the design field can contribute. A project that enhances a sense of safety, for instance, can be read in relation to inclusive public space and equal access to facilities. Designs that encourage care and self-reliance correspond to objectives around health, education and equality. Works that explore new ways of engaging with materials connect to responsible consumption and production. And designs that place the relationship with nature at the centre resonate with the goals for life on land and below water.

Tangible impact

This approach aligns with the exhibition’s optimistic starting point: the focus is not solely on the problems, but on the steps being taken. By linking to the SDGs, a broader understanding emerges of the role of design today: as a practical force that translates ideas into tangible impact.

"I have focused primarily on the ‘youngest’ generation of designers: those who have recently graduated, or on projects that are closely related to the lives of young people. In my role as project leader of the Design Academy Eindhoven Graduation Show, I have been able to see up close what is going on with this young group over the past eight years. Themes such as cultural background and personal development, but also urban development and climate transcend the individual and I find them inspiring. The fact that these young designers manage to capture such major topics in clear and understandable projects makes them exhibition-worthy, in my opinion.”

“With my background as an industrial designer, at that time still a student, I focused on the intersection of design, the university and technology.

One of the strengths of design is that designers present their ideas and processes in such a way that they become understandable and communicable to a wider audience. This allows more people to become involved from different perspectives. Designers make a translation that renders complex issues accessible. In that sense, they are much like artists, art and design are quite similar in that respect. Designers add direct applicability by making solutions concrete and pragmatic.

My advice to visitors? First of all, I would like to say that an exhibition is always a simplified representation of a subject. So I would encourage you to ask questions about what you see. And talk about it with the people around you: how do they interpret the works, what do they think is involved, and what does it mean to them?”

“As a researcher at Het Nieuwe Instituut, I focused on practices that develop alternative ways of shaping the world collectively. I paid attention to underrepresented participants in the design process, both human and non-human, and to underrepresented forms of togetherness. I looked for designers and collectives that critically examine the idea of ‘design as a connecting force’: who is being connected, who is left out, and what other forms of connection might exist? I also selected projects that operate as testing grounds: works that not only present perspectives but also bring alternative worlds into being on a small scale.

Design does not automatically create connectedness; that depends on the circumstances. But it can make relationships tangible: by creating spaces for encounters, disrupting extractive structures, emphasising collective authorship and making interdependencies visible.

My hope is that visitors leave with the sense that other ways of living together are possible. So approach the works with curiosity rather than expectation, and look at the relationships they reveal, between humans, non-humans and the infrastructures that shape our lives.”