Open

Any creation has to be transformable.

Courageous

Question everything and accept risk taking, to change the status quo.

Immersive

Be immersed in the context, to shape necessary and collective dreams.

Iterative

Recognise and raise the value of the existent and reactivate its value.

Understandable

Make the complex accessible and understandable by anyone.

Careful

Take the necessary time for reflection, to find the common good.

Just

Collaborate with, and trust transversal knowledges, for an accurate and fair output.

Shareable

Idealism will be shared and transmitted to generate transformative practices.

Background
The Ideal Lab has operated as a research through design program in the period 2010-2017. Through five themes based on social issues, 52 Agents have used a common process based on trust, doubt, ethics and empathy, to produce 40 works of art and design. Ideal lab have worked with municipalities and local communities in four cities in Norway and France and exhibited the results in a dedicated exhibition touring Biennale Internationale Design Saint-Etienne, Le Cité du Design et de la Mode, Paris, Saint-Nazaire, Florø, Kraft, Bergen and at the Oslo Architecture Triennial. The issues researched: Senior wave (Longer Participation), Food waste (Precious Food), Empathic neighbourhoods (Empathic Home), Inclusive identity (Replanted Identity and Tøyen Replanted) are themes that can not be closed and deserve further investigation. Ideal Lab was created in 2009 by Birgitta Ralston and Alexandre Bau as a desire to push further the cross competent collaboration between art and design, started in the Cycle of Mutation program, towards social problematics. They saw ethics and social engagement as crucial to a relevant design practice. The Idealist movement is using the ideas and methods from Ideal Lab in the local contexts and action fields of the movements partner institutions.

Founding members
Birgitta Ralston & Alexandre Bau, Designers, Norway
Béatrice Josse, Curator, France
Ambra Trotto, Research Director, Sweden
Anthony Quinn, Ceramic Designer & Professor, Central Saint-Martins London, UK
Eva Gonzales-Sancho, Curator, Norway