Hella Jongerius: Phoenix – Reborn Beauty

The exhibition’s title is: Phoenix – reborn beauty.
Phoenix is the name of a big bird
in very old Greek stories.
It burns to death every evening and
is born again from its ashes every morning.
The exhibition’s title refers to the new life
and to the new beauty.

The exhibition is based on a project by
Hella Jongerius and the
Porcelain Manufactory Nymphenburg.
Hella Jongerius is a designer from the Netherlands.
The Porcelain Manufactory Nymphenburg is in Munich.
In a manufactory, the products are made by hand.
Porcelain is made from fine clay and other materials.

The Porcelain Manufactory Nymphenburg
was founded in 1747.
It is almost 300 years old.
It is the last manufactory where the employees
do all the work only by hands.
The Porcelain Manufactory Nymphenburg
produces tableware, for example.

People often store precious tableware
in the cellar or in the attic,
because it is not trendy anymore.
The idea for this exhibition was:
The old tableware should come to life again.

With the exhibition, Hella Jongerius
and the Porcelain Manufactory Nymphenburg
want to stand up against waste.
Because human work and materials
are often wasted.

The idea is also called Generation T.
A generation is a group of people
who are around the same age.
For example, children, teenagers or old people.
The T is short for:
Tradition, Transformation and Tableware.
Tradition means that people have been doing something the same way for a long time. Transformation means that something changes.

The centre of the exhibition is a laid table.
Old and young people can meet there.
The laid table connects these people,
because every piece of tableware has a story:
Someone inherited it or got it as a gift.
Some pieces were bought second-hand.

The porcelain tableware on the table
is also old and young at the same time:
Hella Jongerius lets people paint the old tableware.
This way, she combines new methods and old craftwork.

Hella Jongerius has picked 2 new designs for the tableware:
The design with the plants is drawn with fine lines.
It shows made up herbs
that freely grow over the tableware.
The other design shows thick drops of colour.
They run down the tableware.
The new designs cover the old design.

The exhibition is a project of
Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum and the Porcelain Manufactory Nymphenburg.
The occasion for the exhibition is the mcbw 2023. This is short for: Munich creative business week.