The art of design - that is, a hands-on approach to creating useful objects - is the subject of an exhibition now on view at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery on West 14^th Street. Aptly titled My World: New Subjectivity in Design, the show presents work by seven British designers in their 20s and 30s that playfully comments on the standardization and sameness of products, environments and media today.

Making its final stop on an international tour launched at the 2005 Lisbon Design Biennale, the show explores how, during a period of intense globalization, many people crave a stronger sense of identity in the objects that fill their lives. Often taking advantage of advanced technologies, the designers here explore the personalization and closeness to materials that defines the craft ethic. Each has defined a distinct visual language and new ways of approaching the design and fabrication of furniture, objects, environments and multimedia.

Installation photos by Peggy Roalf

Danny Brown, a digital artist/designer who specializes in generative animation, a discipline fueled by the computer games of his childhood, created a piece called Software as Furniture. Using white bedlinen and tableware as its canvas, his projected patterns and color sets evolve and mutate into objects of desire. When the lights are dimmed, all that remains is banal white crockery and plain white sheets.

Wokmedia, the design partnership between Michael Cross and Julia Mathias, created an environment that could be manufactured but is fabricated by hand from natural materials. For My World, they created a piece called Sprinkle, a flock of wool pom-poms randomly scattered on the floor to evoke a forest environment. On the adjacent wall is Lunuganga, a set of "bookshelves" that consist of twisted tree branches painted white and loaded with books on design and media.

Alison Willoughby, a textile designer, became fascinated by the Highland kilt as both a garment and an object. In her further investigations, she arrived at the circle skirt as a universal platform for artistic exploration in both 2 and 3 dimensions. As a flat, round shape, it becomes a canvas on which she applies all kinds of embroideries and fabric collages. When wrapped and fastened as a garment, pinned to one side like a kilt, it becomes a fashion fantasy. In addition to the 16 circle skirts on view is a knee-high stack of one thousand skirt shapes in the dressmaking materials she commonly uses.

These are just a few of the installations in My World that question and propose ways of thinking about how the stuff that fills our lives comes into being. On Thursday, January 24 at 6:00 pm, Pratt Manhattan Gallery is hosting a discussion with the exhibit curator Emily Campbell, designers Nipa Doshi, and Pratt alumnus Tucker Viermeister, Creative Vice President of Studio Red at Rockwell Group. A reception will follow. Please check the website for more information.

On Saturday, January 26, from 3 to 5 pm, the New School for General Studies presents Crafting Protest, a symposium that will explore the role of craft in times of political turmoil and war; notions of patriotism; feminism and the domestic sphere; and unconventional economic models. Following the discussion will be collective hands-on actions. Admission is $8, and free to all students. Please check the website for more information.