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Corcoran College and Danish Design School Collaboration at the Danish Embassy

Brittany WatsonBy Brittany Watson on Dec 03, 2009 | Add a Comment Add a Comment (0)

Corcoran College and Danish Design School Collaboration at the Danish Embassy

A "snowstorm" created with recycled and recycleable materials

Louise Havndrup, Breeze Giannasio, Caryn Cramer, Brittany Watson, and and Tirsdag Kjøller

Louise Havndrup, Breeze Giannasio, Caryn Cramer, Brittany Watson, and and Tirsdag Kjøller

Tirsdag installing the Rose Garden with the pink pages of the Financial Times

Tirsdag installing the Rose Garden with the pink pages of the Financial Times

Brittany creating a five-foot wreath with paper mache endangered birds and roses made from coffee filters.

Brittany creating a five-foot wreath with paper mache endangered birds and roses made from coffee filters.

Jars hung from the trees surrounding the Ambassador's house.

Jars hung from the trees surrounding the Ambassador's house.

Christmas trees

Christmas trees

video calls were held every week

video calls were held every week

By Breeze Giannasio and Brittany Watson

After months of preparation we, two students from the Danish Design School in Copenhagen and three from the Corcoran College of Art + Design here in DC, unveiled our design for the the Royal Danish Embassy's annual Cool Creative Christmas celebration on December 1st and 2nd. The party took a new green twist this year to highlight COP15 - the United Nations Climate Change Conference, hosted in Denmark December 7-18, 2009. By hosting the UN climate conference, the Danish government has brought the topic of energy and sustainable choices into vivid focus.  In keeping with the mission of the conference, this year's Christmas installation was decidedly green. Solar LED lights, soy candles, recycled and seed-infused paper, Cradle to Cradle approved fabrics, non-VOC paint and many more green efforts make up the installation.  All recyclable items will be recycled and/or reused.

In the spirit of international exchange of ideas, two Danish students from the Danish Design School, Louise Havndrup and Tirsdag Kjøller and three American students from the Corcoran College of Art + Design, Caryn Cramer, Breeze Giannasio, and myself, Brittany Watson collaborated on the installation. This transnational design effort weaves together aspects of Danish national heritage, sustainability issues and a very special Danish story, Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen."  The installation uses the "Snow Queen" as a parable, in a sense, for efforts to counteract climate
change. The work references climate change, nature's abundance, and the inexorable power of people working in unison with each other and nature.

Many of the design elements woven throughout the house reflected imagery from the story like the swooping snowstorms intertwining the banisters in the foyer made of everything from disposed napkins and paper towels to a life size paper mache Japanese Red Crane representing one of the birds from the endangered list.

Short URL: http://bit.ly/6ijSKY

Brittany Watson Add a Comment (0) | Like this Item Like   | Tags: Corcoran, Danish, design, recycled, students

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