Material is Not Neutral
About the New Materialists exhibition – a part of the Design Forum 2026
For a long time, the choice of material was seen in design as a stage following the formal decision. First, the idea of the object, its function, proportions and shape was created, only then came the question: What to make it from?
The New Materialists exhibition, prepared as part of the Design Forum 2026, reverses this order. It represents projects in which the material is not only the bearer of the form, but also the starting point, the partner in the process, the source of limits, potentials, and meanings. Design Forum 2026 was held as part of the 35th edition of the Furniture and Housing Fair in Nitra. The exhibition presented student projects from four Slovak universities: the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava, the Technical University in Košice, the Technical University in Zvolen and the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava.
Maroš Schmidt’s curatorial selection focused on new materials, their research and application in design practice. The exhibition’s concept is not limited to the presentation of aesthetic or functional possibilities of new materials. The material is grasped here more broadly – through its lifespan, circulation, environmental and health responsibilities, recycling potential, relationship to local production, and the social dimension of design. The name of the exhibition, New Materialists, and therefore be understood not only as a designation of designers working with new materials. Even more inter-esting is its second meaning: “new materialists” are those who change the position of the designer in relation to matter. They ask not only how to subordinate the material to the intended form, but also how to read its logic, tendency, resistance, history and possible future.
In this sense, the exhibition fits into a broader shift in contemporary thinking about design. Polish anthropologist Ewa Klekot noted that a non-anthropocentric perspective is becoming increasingly important in both design research and design practice. It means moving away from a situation in which the person – designer, maker or user remains the sole centre of interpretation. Design can also be analyzed as a network of relationships among people, materials, tools, technologies, environments, and production processes. In the context of the designs in Nitra, this view proves particularly productive. The presented projects are not just objects intended for observation. Rather, they are material traces of trials, tests, errors, experiments and negotiations. In many of them, the most important thing is not the finished product, but the path leading to its creation: mixing, dyeing, melting, pressing, printing, binding, drying, layering, folding, breaking or reprocessing. The aterial here turns out to be something more than a raw material. Klekot reminds us that material has sensory features recognizable by the senses and, at the same time, properties explored abstractly. We recognize sensory features through touch, appearance, weight, roughness, stickiness, coldness, fragility or pliability. Technological and material knowledge describes the properties of composition, density, flexibility, strength, recyclability, and biodegradability. In design practice, these two orders should not be separated. Designer connects technological data, user experience and their own physical experience gained through contact with the material.
The New Materialists exhibition shows that work with material often begins with an experiment. Examples are the projects CreaColours, BIOKOLORANTY, A čo si z cukru?, Reconnected, Taper or Biocompozity v dizajne – the material here is not a ready-made raw material that you need to use. Rather, it is a transitional state:
a mixture, sediment, dye, bioplastic, residual material, fibre, composite or biological structure in the process of stabilization. A designer must observe how the material reacts to humidity, temperature, pressure, pigment, time and form. The material’s processuality is one of the exhibition’s most explored themes. In the presented projects, matter does not appear as a passive element waiting to be given form. Still, as a substance with its own dynamics: it flows, binds, softens, hardens, cracks, its layers separate, absorb pigment, change weight, surface and structure. Designing does not consist in simply subordinating a material to a predetermined concept, but in observing its behaviour and negotiating with its compliance and resistance. The material not only takes on a certain shape, but also determines what shapes are even possible.