Image © BMW Group / MINI

Minis are as much a fashion statement as a car. The quintessential British motor has inspired more than its fair share of cultural significance, so it only makes sense that the company invests back into the creative scene – something the company has done with a new exhibition at the London Design Festival.

The future of mobility

Mini has today opened the “Dezeen and MINI Frontiers: The Future of Mobility” exhibition at designjunction as part of the festival. The exhibition is being held with work from six designers from disciplines as varied as filmmaking, performance arts and architecture.

According to a press release from Mini, the exhibition “explores how design, technology and science are coming together to shape the future of travel.”

Designers Pernilla Ohrstedt, Matthew Plummer-Fernandez, Dominic Wilcox, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Lucy McRae and Keiichi Matsuda have all contributed a piece to the show, all centered around the future and how cars and mobility as a whole will look.

Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg has created a vision of the future where a car manufacturer (let’s just say Mini, shall we?) only makes the basic chassis to which sustainable and biodegradable shells are added, made using natural and local resources. As the piece progresses, evolution and fluidity takes over through 13 “generations” of the same vehicle.

Taking the idea of customisation into the booming bobble-head space, Matthew Plummer-Fernandez has conceived an interactive system with which to design and 3d-print an unique figurine to join you on your journey into the future! According to Mini, these connected and intelligent driving companions can “be connected to the car’s GPS, can offer tips to the driver according to driving style and speed, and can act as speakers for hands-free phones.” For reasons unknown to the writer they mostly look like amorphous blobs with cat faces. I want one.

Vacuum-packed people

Other exibits include a film representing life through augmented-reality, an experiment into vacuum-packing yourself to prepare for space travel, a look into the future of driverless cars by means of a vehicle made of stained-glass, and an examination of the world through data captured through driverless cars.

Check out the photos below for a taster of what to expect.

See all this and more at designjunction between the 18th and 21st September 2014 as part of the awesome London Design Festival. Go and check it out if you can, and let us know what you think of the concepts!

In other Mini news, we tested the 2014 Mini Cooper’s parking assist mode. Find out how it went here!