Designer Kiseung Lee of Helsinki wants people to fill stockings with more vital gifts this Christmas: donations to the blood bank.
His conceptual stocking-shaped blood packs were on show as part of Helsinki Design Week in September, although they were filled with red pigment rather than actual blood.
Lee wants to stimulate donations as a generous gesture that's easy to make but could mean the difference between life and death to someone else.
Here are some more details from Kiseung Lee:
"Put your present in the socks, somewhen it will be back to you"
In generally, people tend to show a stiff motivation and response to donation. This phenomenon has caused passive dedication to society and human being lives. Naturally, it has weaken a bond between mankind. I suggest new blood bag design and hope to inspire active blood donating boom or event across the world and dedicate to improve a quality of our lives. By donating warmness with pleasure, people would feel being a “Santa-claus” alike . Also, the socks shape welfare and sharing love - written by Kiseung, Lee
The richest countries in the world suffer from overproduction and goods bulimia. The biggest problem is no longer a lack of possessions, but homes changed to warehouses for them. The question from the beginning of the 1970s, “Necessary or not?”, is more timely than ever. What do we really need? Goods and product design have developed through different eras and isms, but we people, whether we are millionaires or not, always and forever have but one heart. Neither has the number or shape of our hands changed over the millennia. Whether we want to be or not, we are all anatomically ancient in the midst of all these novelty products. The act of being brings inevitable vulnerability and uncertainty. Our only certainty is our daily trade in dreams and lies. The important things are always very simple. The greatest gift is to just at the right moment find a personal unquestioning and intimate closeness in another human. Santa’s stockings has not been filled with useless Chinese plastic junk - written by Kaj Kalin, Exhibition "to declare" curator, Helsinki design week 2011.