Imagine: Coral Reef Regenerative Design | Interview With Harald Gründl

IMAGINE: CORAL REEF REGENERATIVE DESIGN’

From May 3 to June 23, 2024, the exhibition ‘Imagine: Coral Reef Regenerative Design’ was held at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin. This experimental design exhibition portrayed coral reefs in a world facing multiple crises. The complex ecosystem of a coral reef is dying due to man-made climate change. ‘Imagine: Coral Reef Regenerative Design’ demonstrates this by crocheting white papers and displaying them under UV light to simulate the bleaching of the reefs. The exhibition then applied design processes to show viewers potential paths to save the reefs.

The exhibition created an immersive space where macro-corals, based on the open design instructions from the project “Crochet Coral Reef” by Christine and Margaret Wertheim (Institute for Figuring), highlighted coral bleaching events. The coral reef was populated with objects representing core themes of regenerative design principles inspired by Andreas Weber’s text Enlivenment. These exhibits served as conversation starters, encouraging visitors to contemplate the potential roles design can play in creating regenerative futures.

What was it about the coral reefs that inspired you? 

This might be the first biological system that is going to totally vanish. Coral is a very intuitive, colourful lively image. When I say coral reef, everyone has this image of fish going around and all these colours. The second thing you might think of is coral bleaching, which ecosystems face more and more. We found this double image an interesting set-up for thinking about a topic which is quite abstract still when we’re talking about regenerative design. 

I’m not a biologist, but what fascinates me as a design and design series is: How can such a lively and rich ecosystem build up in areas where there’s absolutely nothing? So it’s just the infrastructure of the corals, which produces this incredible ecosystem. I think this serves as a metaphor when you think of how we could enable this kind of thriving ecosystem in our context of culture. 

Was there a particular moment when you suddenly realised this was what you wanted to do?  

In the preliminary research of the exhibition, we came across an intelligence tool from the World Economic Forum. It’s a kind of network tool where whatever you press you create all these other relations. We looked into the circular design and where it goes and one goes to the ocean. This is what brought us to this crazy idea of thinking about the sea.

How do you hope people will react to the exhibition? Are you aiming to inspire a realisation of new regenerative ways of acting?

The exhibition has different aspects. One aspect is what we call the coral reef room because usually in the other exhibitions everything was in one room. So adapting to these conditions in the Kunstgewerbermuseum we had to separate things which brought us to having this more immersive installation in one room with a quite shocking projection of these kinds of biodiversity versus manmade materials piling up. The other room is what we call the regenerative design lab. This format is not only an exhibition but also covers the workshops we do with universities when the exhibition goes from one place to the other. 

You see seven objects representing the seven principles and this of course is ongoing research so it’s very difficult to find quite bold examples but we try hard. 

I think it’s not always to say look this is how we are going to do that but for example, the grass shoe is something that represents the commons. So old women, they go into the forest, and they find the secret place and there they harvest the grass and then they bring it back and they dry it. Of course, it’s not to be a kind of blueprint or recipe for Adidas or Nike to produce their shoes. But I think it should be an inspiration to look at the whole process of what kind of materials are used and who does it belong to.

I think design needs to be more informed decision-making. It needs to design all of the value chain as well. I think sometimes designers just want a simple solution so they choose bioplastic but I don’t think it’s that easy.

There was a lot of different research and technical information in the exhibition. What was the collaboration experience between everyone like? 

When we started the exhibitions last year it was this immersive installation. We said we wanted an experimental exhibition in one way which I think we have managed, especially through the exhibition’s architecture. The other thing we said is that we want it to be self-learning. This is one of the natural principles. We wanted this kind of openness and unplanned ness of things. So one of these things is the collaboration with students. We didn’t have this in Berlin but I’m really thankful for the collaboration with other bands from Kunstgewerbermuseum. The museum curator built up a modern human platform which fits very nicely. She found really wonderful objects from the Renaissance. This challenges modern design theories, as we once believed we could make nature even more beautiful by putting gold around it and telling mythological stories. It is crazy that a craftsman could remove the outer shell, leaving only the pearl surface. This highlights the need for interdisciplinary research. Museums sometimes don’t connect or question how we would beautify nature today. Revisiting past practices and understanding how to reintegrate them into our current society is crucial. We have to find better solutions very fast. 

Could you tell me about your decision to make it a travelling exhibition? 

The travelling exhibition was a possibility given by our clients. When Austria starts funding exhibitions, it sometimes comes as a kind of colonial-style thing to present how good we are and our products, our art and our architecture. This exhibition is really consciously working against this, going somewhere and being smarter than the place. For Belgrade, we are collaborating on one of the exhibits with an organisation called Co/Rizom. It’s a network which covers very talented individual crafts, mostly in the Balkan region and in Tirana. In Belgrade, we will activate one of these exhibitions to create an impact there. 

The next stops are Delhi and Bangalore is a high-tech city. It is inspiring to find local partners and to find the right place to show it.   

What is your vision for future projects? 

We have the seven principles and these were translated from a book by a German philosopher and biologist describing nature. We try to ask ‘What is regenerative design’? The simplest answer that we found is applying these principles of nature and design. This is a very short answer that brings a lot of complexity. 

With the student workshops, every student group only gets one of the principles. Of course, the next level is to have more principles being integrated. 

I’m teaching design theory at the University of Applied Arts and I proposed a project where I take care of students who are willing to challenge themselves in taking more than one project. This evolves into an educational project. 

It’s difficult, it’s challenging, but I think it’s inspiring as well.

Was there a reason you decided to use crochet? 

When designing the exhibition, we knew we wanted to follow our own title. Crocheting the coral structures intrigued us because it goes beyond typical design work done on a computer. There are only two ways these crochet patterns grow, creating hyperbolic shapes. We experimented with these forms, trying to understand what kind of new form-fitting exercise it would be. We found it interesting how they varied based on room arrangement. We chose biodegradable material that comes from a natural cycle. It became more advanced when we wanted to recreate this death situation of the corals which happens when the bleaching starts. They start throwing out the algae and they become white. In ‘Chasing Coral’ there is an incredible sequence where the coral starts going in the UV light in these blue white and violet tones and we wanted to recreate this. We found different qualities of this paper which are different kinds of white. It was an experimental process, it was a lot of playing and learning and of course, this kind of production crocheting took weeks. 

Were there any other big challenges you struggled with? 

When you have a travelling exhibition, to have a similar expression depending on the place is quite difficult and so we went for this idea of just having black rooms and this works quite well. You don’t have to paint the walls black. This is where exhibitions also waste lots of materials and resources. UV light puts everything in the same dome and you use very little energy, much less than a normal spotlight. 

The exhibition was accompanied by a lot of technical information. How did you balance the information and the visuals? 

Balancing this is challenging. The key is the transition from degenerative to regenerative practices. Many see sustainability as the goal, but it’s just a step toward what we need to achieve. People often think that ‘green’ is enough, but sustainability, even with the United Nations’ goals, is merely a transition, not the final objective.

What was your favourite aspect of the exhibition? What are you most proud of? 

I’m quite proud that it seems to draw people into various serious questions about the future in an entertaining and inspiring way. We were very afraid that there were only seven exhibits. But then we got feedback from people that it was good it was just seven because they started to think about what others were missing. I think that worked out quite well and we’ll see how we do it in the future.

Do you have a positive expectation of the reefs and humanity’s ability to regenerate? 

I think the willingness to save such beautiful ecosystems is high. I think it’s a metaphor for what design can do. It creates this beautiful future that we can buy into and we like it.

Have you had any responses that have stood out to you?

For me, the most beautiful experience is this exchange with local actors. There was one story in Sarajevo. The art university has a design course and they called it sustainable design. Then after the exhibition, the professor said to me maybe we should rename this regenerative design. 

Where do you see the coral reefs in 10 years?

The key questions are what practices we want to eliminate and what changes we seek. If people step out of their usual roles, they’ll see the need to abandon harmful practices. We’re stuck in outdated business concepts, not because we don’t know better, but because we lack trust in alternatives. This is a typical transition phase. I hope this initiative encourages some to try these alternatives.

+ Highlight Image: ©EOOS