The Breakdown Economy

‘The Breakdown Economy’ is an exhibition about making and destroying things. It’s not about economic growth and efficient production, but about the limitations of this model. How do we destroy everything that we, as humans, have made? In this discussion you can assume a radical position and lump everything together or adopt a more pragmatic attitude whereby a ‘breakdown economy’ is in balance with nature. What connects all these ideas is not just that things can be done differently, but that they must be done differently. 

 The research by Studio Klarenbeek & Dros into a world without plastic is placed centrally in this exhibition. They have developed a material called ‘weed-ware’ which is a natural degradable alternative to plastic. Atelier Van Lieshout shows a recent version of ‘Disco Inferno – Happy End of Everything’ (2020) which is an ultimate recycle installation that transforms all the waste we collectively produce into crude oil. Koehorst in ’t Veld presents a graphic representation that shows how the bio-based and the fossil economy have, over time, related to each other.

As Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is closed for the renovation, we are focusing the collection and the programme on new collaboration in the city. The museum is experimenting with design and art as an artistic crowbar to instigate social innovation.

In this exhibition, you can move freely through the various works. A series of interviews is interspersed with video’s, images and accompanying texts.

The recordings for ‘The Breakdown Economy’ were made at Foundation AVL Mundo. The concept of the online exhibition was conceived and executed together with Koehorst in ’t Veld and film-maker Roel van Tour.