California, and especially Silicon Valley, has defined so much of our sense of freedom with design objects made there. But there is quite a big difference in what we define now as freedom from the sixties till now. The exhibition ‘California: Designing Freedom’ now on display at the Stedelijk Museum in Den Bosch, the Netherlands, shows this development. I visited the exhibition and interviewed Justin McGuirk, the curator.

Joep van Lieshout opened his studio for Object Rotterdam. I interviewed him about the political impact of his work and his fight againt gentrification in the harbour area of Rotterdam.

We are obsessed with growth thinks artist Arne Hendriks, well-known for his ‘Incredible Shrinking Man’ project. This shows in the harvest of white cabbage, which at the moment is too good. As a result, much of this cabbage remains on the farms for the simple reason that it doesn’t have enough value. I visited Arne at Mediamatic, where he organised a nine course cabbage dinner, to show that other values than money can also play a role.

Johan van den Noort is a Dutch artist who has designed serveral solutions for flexible water managment that have been implemented all over the world. I visited him in his studio in Kampen to look at his flexible flood barrier and tsunami barrier.

I interviewed Anne van der Zwaag, the curator of Object Rotterdam, a fair for contemporary design. This year, Object Rotterdam was held in the HAKA building, an amazing architectural monument, which is a national heritage site since 2002 and was one the first buildings build from trash.

Kim Kyung-Mook is a South Korean filmmaker. His films – short, long and documentary – investigate the insecure lives of marginalized groups of people such as homosexuals, transsexuals, sex workers, North Korean deserters and others. On 27 January, Kyung-Mook spoke at De Balie as part of the IFFR program about the importance of giving a voice to those who are not heard and about what it means to generate social impact through film and image. I interviewed him about his works ‘Me and Doll Playing’ and ‘Grace Period’, his relationship with his parents about his homosexuality and his time in jail.

North-Korea is one of the most secretive places in the world. Photographer Eddo Hartmann gives us an insight in the architecture and living world of the people of Pyongyang, which both are under strict rules and regulations. Dutch journalist Tracy Metz visited together with him his exhibition ‘Setting the Stage’ in Huis Marseille and interviewed him about his work.

This week I show you three design and architecture projects. I took a look behind the scenes at the winter studio of Sarah van Sonsbeeck. She designs ‘mental architecture’ and asked students of the Academy of Architecture to design silence for the city of Amsterdam. The Window Show displays art in the shop windows of the Haarlermmerstraat. And I was at the yearly presentation of landscape artist Bruno Doedens where he showed a preview of his new work.