Milan 2010: Eindhoven designer Joost van Bleiswijk has designed a series of chests containing giant vessels, presented by the Zuiderzee Museum at the Ventura Lambrate district in Milan this week.

Called The Poor Man's Gold, the collection is based on voyages made by the Dutch East India Company.

Photographs are by Frank Tielemans.

See also: Zuiderzee Settings by Kiki van Eijk, also at Ventura Lambrate

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The following information is from the Zuiderzee Museum:

The Poor Man’s Gold

Joost van Bleiswijk based his series of four chests on the voyages of the Dutch East India Company. As a rule, these trade missions sailed from Enkhuizen, the home base of the Zuiderzee Museum. Joost van Bleiswijk gives his interpretation of this part of Dutch history. The chests refer to the battle of good and evil, prosperity and poverty, and to robbing or being robbed.

Each year the Dutch Zuiderzee Museum commissions prominent artists and designers to visualize their views of the collection, the Museum, and the history of the Zuiderzee. Through their contemporary interpretations, the story of the Zuiderzee, the battle between land and water, is retold.

In the past few years, commissions have been issued to Studio Job, Maarten Baas, Atelier Van Lieshout, Hugo Kaagman, Scholten & Baijings, Christien Meindertsma, Aldo Bakker and Zoro Feigl. Kiki van Eijk and Joost van Bleiswijk represent the promising new generation of Dutch interior design.

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