A princess in peril is rescued by a prince on a white horse, and they live happily ever after. We’ve all grown up with stories and clichés that have unconsciously influenced our image of love. Love, designed explores these stereotypes and shows how design guides the way we both seek and ‘consume’ love.
Changing phenomenon
We like to think that we ourselves choose who and how to love. But appearances can deceive. Our choices are guided and our image of love has been unconsciously conditioned since our childhood. This image, designed largely by ourselves, is normative, rooted in gender inequality and racially discriminating. It is dated and was never actually universal at all. Our idea of love is changing all the time, not least in response to important societal questions and shifts in public opinion. Take the influence of #MeToo, trans legislation and social issues such as gender discrimination. But also new technological developments like chatGPT and the metaverse. This exhibition takes place at a time when our perception and experience of love are changing rapidly.
Love is…
There’s no ready-made answer to the question of what love actually is. Biologists, anthropologists and sociologists see it as a biological system consisting of bonding, intimacy and passion. According to the anthropologists, bonding and passion are universal, while ‘falling in love’ is a construct. Historians interpret love in terms of the standards, values and customs of a given period, while psychology speaks of ‘a relationship from which feelings can arise’. Philosophers have their own ideas too. Plato, for instance, stated in his Symposium that love is the search for your ‘other half’. Heidegger saw love as total surrender to the other person, which corresponds to some extent with Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism and Sufism.
Bonding, falling in love and passion
In this exhibition, we approach love as a biological, cultural and social phenomenon based on three substantive elements: bonding, falling in love and passion. We draw on a range of objects that are stereotypically associated with love to explore how it is designed, experienced and consumed. You will discover the cultural-historical background of these designs, how they have been deployed to shape our image of love, and how they ultimately became symbols of it.
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Passion – Love play
The appearance of sex toys tells us a lot about how people felt about lust and gratification at a particular time. About the taboos that might still attach to them. And about the future of sex and the ideals of designers.
Passion – The kiss
Your first kiss. You never forget it. No matter how sweet, sloppy or bad it was. After that, there’s no stopping you: on average you’ll spend 20,000 minutes of your life kissing.
Passion – Perfectible body
Not happy with your body? Then do something about it. That seems to be the credo of our age, with its obsession with perfect bodies. But is the body really so perfectible?
Passion – The body
The contents of Bouquet romantic novels might still leave something to the imagination, but not so their covers: this is the image of the ‘ideal man’. What does it say about our perceptions?
Passion – Romantic fiction
Seven Nights with the Sheikh, A Kiss in the Moonlight, An Heir for the King: the titles of romantic fiction in the world-famous Bouquet series have always appealed to the imagination. Guilty pleasures full of desire, temptation and happy endings are still extremely popular.
Falling in Love – Making it happen
Butterflies in your stomach, unable to eat a thing, constantly daydreaming and checking your phone every five minutes to see if you’ve received a new message: falling in love is magical.
Bonding – Parenthood
For centuries being a mum or dad was not a choice at all, simply how things were ‘supposed to be’. The way parenthood itself is viewed has also changed over the years.
Bonding – Marriage
Only three things are truly important in a marriage: you, your beloved and your love for each other. All the same, there are a lot more factors at play in the background.
Bonding – Family of choice
In addition to their biological family, many people have one they’ve chosen for themselves: people you’re not related to, people who understand, help and love you.
Bonding – The Couple Look
See them whizzing across the city on their fast bikes: his a men’s model, hers a woman’s. Both wrapped in a puffer jacket and with matching trainers. The dreary ‘ANWB couple’ in trendy jackets.
