DOORKNOBS: BEYOND THE EVERYDAY

In Doorknobs: Beyond the Everyday at WantedDesign 2019 eighteen designers, artists and makers explore and reimagine the common doorknob. For Doorknobs: Beyond the Everyday curators Gregory Beson and Sarah Templin invited celebrated designers to reenvision this ubiquitous, yet overlooked object. The work in the exhibition ranges from the speculative to the performative to the practical, reflecting the diverse, multi-disciplinary perspectives of the cohort. Unlike most exhibitions, attendees are encouraged to touch and interact with the work on display.

The exhibition opens May 15, 2019 at WantedDesign as part of NYCxDesign and will showcase acclaimed designers chosen for their diverse approaches:

The doorknob is always in service yet asks for little. Its form, material and detail can assist or dramatically hinder. Wood knobs wear beautifully, with teak and Spanish cedar employed for their natural rot resistance. Brass has natural antimicrobial properties and precedents of brass knobs illustrate human understanding of alloys.

The curators also see the doorknob as “a means to move over thresholds and pass through gateways between interior and exterior; private and public; this world and perhaps another.”

Designer and disability advocate Liz Jackson has designed a door that can only be unlocked with a cane, flipping the traditional idea of accessibility. Jackson says of her design, “This doorknob is not intended to be accessible to all, but rather, welcoming to some, with a super-secret ‘canehole’ rather than a keyhole.”

Bertille Laguet’s doorknob heightens the tactile experience of passing through a door. The French designer and blacksmith gave her object a touchable surface using a custom-made tool. “When thinking about a doorknob, shape is not the first thing that comes to my mind. It is the memories of the texture and the feeling in my hand. You recognize the doorknob you know more by touching it than by visualizing it.”

The doorknob denotes a portal for possibility. What is on the other side of the threshold? What lays beyond the door

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