Here are some photos from an exhibition of work by over 70 designers including Studio Job, Nacho Carbonell and BCXSY, on show at 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo, directed by Li Edelkoort.

Called Post Fossil, the show examines how Edelkoort feels designers draw on the past to inform the future, returning to natural materials and basic rituals.

The exhibition opened on 24 April and continues until 27 June.

More about 21_21 Design Sight on Dezeen: Second Nature by Tokujin Yoshioka (November 2008)

Here's some more information from 21_21 Design Sight:

New trends in the design world from the eyes of world-renowned trend-forecaster Li Edelkoort: This exhibition brings together over 130 works by 71 creators. In the spirit of striving to be a “venue that will generate design that sees clearly what is ahead”, upon which 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT was founded, we will hold an exhibition titled “POST FOSSIL: excavating 21st century creation” on April 24, 2010, with trend-forecaster Li Edelkoort as exhibition director.

Li Edelkoort is a pioneer in the field of trend prediction, who scrutinizes social and economic realities in order to decipher social developments and indications of people!s changing values. Through her unique observations, she has built up an influential reputation through consulting to various brands worldwide, education, publications, and exhibitions. As one example, the educational curriculum at the Design Academy Eindhoven (the Netherlands), at which she served as chairwoman from 1999 to 2008, is highly acclaimed.

The value systems constructed over the previous century are being reviewed in the wake of the global economic crisis. Edelkoort's attention is now on the trends being set by a new generation of designers, those that create with unfettered freedom and whose works will challenge and overturn the conventional notions of design. These designers are retracing the steps of human history and going back to the primitive roots of the very act of making things. They are redesigning not only the shelter and tools but also lifestyle, incorporating elements of nature into materials and creation processes.

This exhibition brings together over 130 works of 71 participants that Li Edlkoort sees as “POST FOSSIL” creators. This collection poses the question, “How will the designers of tomorrow look to past in order to invent the future?” As it “excavates” and analyzes new creative trends in and for the 21st century, which are embodied in materials, colors, shapes, processes, themes, images, techniques, and other elements, this exhibition searches for clues necessary for the human beings to live and define their future.

Society is ready to break away from last century for good. To break from creative conventions, theoretic rules and stigmas that now are questioned, challenged and abandoned. To break with a materialistic mentality, replacing it with the modest materialization of earth-bound and recomposed matter.

In the aftermath of the worst financial crisis in decades, a period of glamorous and streamlined design for design!s sake comes to an end. A new generation of designers and architects retrace their roots, refine their earth and research their history, sometimes going back to the beginning of time.

Above: Li Edelkoort

In this process, they formulate design around natural and sustainable materials, favoring timber, hide, pulp, fiber, earth and fire; like contemporary cavemen, they reinvent shelter, redesign tools and manmade machines, and conceptualize archaic rituals for a more modest, content and contained lifestyle.

Like a Fred and Wilma Flintstone of the future.

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