Release1 is a Boston-based design collective that has sponsored some great exhibits on critical design and marketing. They don't seem to have done anything recently, but I especially liked the 2003 Disturbdelightdesign exhibit, which introduced me to some older work (from 2001) I hadn't noticed at the time, such as:
Carla Ross-Allen's Fatwear and Skinthetics series
and Kirsten White and Ken Nicol's Laundry Carpet (see above left) and
Jonathan Fairman's mode-shift (see above right).
Sadly, the Release1 website is a Flash-based atrocity: hideous to navigate, unsearchable, with lots of hidden sections and untraceable steps. Still, the projects are worth the frustration - for many of them the website provided the only online documentation I could find. It's a pity that the site prioritizes showy navigation over supporting their exhibitions, though. It's been a while since I've seen Flash used so unhelpfully in an interaction design portfolio site.
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