ITALY: A New Collective Landscape is an overview of one hundred young Italian designers from which the overall image emerges as a plural and feasible model of society, where the notion of commoning draws on a myriad of new negotiations. Virtuous ways of thinking, being and producing, committed to giving back more than they take.
We are all part of the web of life, in which human and non-human, geological, biological and technological agents are interconnected. Can design culture approach the notion of radical interdependence as a new field of action? Can design practice come up with concrete proposals to become a tool for social, ecological and political transition, producing workable visions aimed at designing kinder relationships?
If the anthropocentric consequences of producing, consuming and living are becoming painfully clear, it is to be believed that design has played a role in all of this, and has contributed to the construction of a precise mindset in considering human interests separately from those of the planet.

The word ‘project’ originates from Latin: pro (forward) jacere (to throw), to cast forward, i.e. to project. By designing tools, one designs ways of being not only mediated by objects, but also disseminated by institutions, relationships and discourses around how we would like to imagine new ways of being, feeling and perceiving. No wonder there are not many products on display, this is simply a positive symptom of the fact that creativity is focusing on projecting alternative worlds and ways of relating to reality, overcoming object-related scenarios we have referenced until now, as well as the actual lack of a political and policy response capable of preparing the ground for such a change.

For those familiar with the world of Italian (and other) design, the title of this exhibition will ring a bell. It originates from and transforms Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, the exhibition curated by Emilio Ambasz at the MoMA in New York in 1972, which brought Italian design to the attention of the rest of the world by making Italy, a country still somewhat behind at the time in terms of modernity, the reference point of the modern discipline par excellence. The choice of referring to this exhibition – minus the impossible ambition of achieving such a high standard of investigation and curatorship – was that exporting the idea of Italian Design through the work of (then) young designers made the fortune of an entire system whose reverberations can still be felt today. Perhaps, it is time to show Italy itself what young Italian design looks like today, overcoming the nostalgia that so closely ties design circles (companies included) to that historical period. Perhaps, the creative response that the exhibition brings together could once again inspire a productive and manufacturing fabric thirsty for change.

Following this logic also in composing an itinerary for the visitor, the curatorial layout is reflected by the exhibition design, which, to quote the authors Eugenio Cosentino, Luca Marullo and Stefano Colombo of Parasite 2.0, “aims to transform the museum’s exhibition space into an open construction site, creating a collective landscape, mobile and in progress.”

It was decided not to structure the exhibition according to typological, methodological or disciplinary categories, but rather to highlight congruences with respect to three virtues – systemic, relational and regenerative – that each project embodies. According to the curatorial team, these are fundamental qualities that a good project should represent today, knowing that this landscape could be reconfigured in a myriad of new readings and associations, and that the most virtuous projects can be told according to all three suggestions.
In Systemic Design, we look at the system of relationships that a project sets in motion for the resources it needs, for the outcomes and outputs it generates, and for the promotion of inclusive, sustainable and circular development models. The exhibition deliberately opens with a series of projects that refer to the domestic sphere, applying this thinking to the everyday object, and then explodes into a variety of formats and applications.

The central area, the pivot and sentiment of the entire exhibition, is dedicated to Relational Design and radiates the idea that design has always been and continues to be a social practice. Here the contributions are posed as tools for fostering community and interdependence, introducing concepts such as equality, collaboration and human and non-human coexistence, always understood as collective and participatory practices.

Challenging the classical mechanics of the exhibition format, here the exhibition design includes spatial areas for interaction, research and entertainment (Play, Read, Watch) where the idea of collectivity is extended to the active involvement of the public as a founding part of the exhibition, embracing participatory formats of exchange. The exhibition, therefore, becomes an overall, inclusive and dynamic landscape model, bypassing the canonical and individual enjoyment of content. This approach is further manifested in the collaboration with some of the designers in the exhibition who have been proposed to co-design some elements of the exhibition design in dialogue with Parasite 2.0, and in the significant investment of a public programme that for the most part sees some of the exhibition’s protagonists conducting programmes of talks, workshops, sessions and performances in total autonomy.

The third quality suggested in the last section under the term Regenerative Design is actually the upshot of the first two: considering that the built environment and production processes can have a positive and regenerative impact, the collected projects range from contextual design – where investigations and research projects emphasise the commitment of many designers to environmental understanding, activism and the eventual constructive response to extreme climate events – to a library of new materials and bio-materials as alternative models to development, where design performs as a practice to facilitate the ecological transition.
At the end of the exhibition the change of direction is quite radical: not only does it include considerations on sourcing and disposal a priori, with the aim of decreasing the impact of production and applying the principles of the circular economy, but it designs and at best implements metabolic systems that restore, renew or revitalise the resources used; resilient and equitable, they are thus able to integrate the needs of society with the integrity of nature.

We would like to ensure that this position may become political and tentacular, and flow into policy making without which this discourse will remain no more than humanistic theory. Stay. Play. Come back.

The exhibition commissioned by MAAT (Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology – Lisbon) looked at how the ocean has washed up inside our cities, homes and cultural institutions, and questions how we have interiorised the notion of an ocean kingdom.
Invented in the Victorian age, the aquarium as object embodies the nature/culture divide, and continues to constitute an ocean diorama, a self-contained world and a techno-natural assemblage, home to a living collection mirroring our own personal yet fictional marine world.
Therefore the aquarium – whether the domestic object or the public venue – has been viewed as the conceptual element that allows us to lay bare the hierarchical mechanisms that have underpinned our culture of living outside of nature: how should we intervene in this world-making process that occurs when our vision becomes limited by what we see?

Design culture here emerges as that critical practice calling into question our conventional ways of inhabiting and experiencing the world, one subject to human control, the extraction of resources and the exploitation of other living beings. As 98% of ornamental fish are still caught in the wild, the aquarium – as a designed desiring machine – conceptually contains them all.
By reflecting on the new issues that any rethinking of our relationship with the marine world might come up against, the exhibition is organised from the microscopic to the transoceanic scale, and the path unfolds through eleven new and revised works that, by insisting on the reiteration of the bidimensional image and that of the screen – alluding to the two-way mediation of connection/separation imposed by the glass walls of aquaria – offer specific points of view to reveal aspects that generally remain shut off from our vision or even our imagination.

The exhibition included a selection of historical materials from international and Portuguese archives, seeking out parallelisms that thematise critical Western issues relating to oceanic knowledge, its transmission and extractive legacy. Meanwhile, a series of voices explored other kinds of interface, including care of more-than-human species and how this relates to human perception.
As part of the exhibition, a film commissioned to Armin Linke, which was realised entirely behind the scenes at the Lisbon Oceanarium, examines the multidimensionality of aquatic architecture, in which the wonders of nature are displayed through hidden, well-orchestrated technology. 

As part of the exhibition, a film commissioned to Armin Linke, which was realised entirely behind the scenes at the Lisbon Oceanarium, examines the multidimensionality of aquatic architecture, in which the wonders of nature are displayed through hidden, well-orchestrated technology. 

The exhibition design by studio 2050+ works on the notions of interface and threshold and acted as an exploded aquarium, where hierarchical relationships are neutralized. Aquaria’s visual identity was designed by studio òbelo and it aims to unsettle the viewer’s gaze by generating a self-reflective awareness of the ambiguities of perception. A relevant public program included a special collaboration with TBA21–Academy (Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary) that has pioneered research and engagement programs around the ocean and its vulnerabilities with a trademark interdisciplinary approach. 

Curator: Angela Rui
Works by: Revital Cohen & Tour Van Balen, Julien Creuzet, Michela de Mattei, Simon Denny, Marjolijn Dijkman & Toril Johannessen, Alice Dos Reis, Eva Jack, Joan Jonas, Armin Linke, Superflex, Stef Veldhuis.

Exhibition design: 2050+ (Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Massimo Tenan, Guglielmo Campeggi)
Graphic design: studio òbelo (Claude Marzotto, Maia Sambonet)
Research and archive assistance: Martina Motta
Local research contribution: Marta Jecu
Special commission by Armin Linke developed with the scientific support of: Oceanário de Lisboa / Fundação Oceano Azul 

Archive materials from:
Biblioteca del Museo di Storia Naturale di Milano, Biblioteca Sormani – Milano, The Historical Diving Society Italia, Biblioteca Central de Marinha – Lisboa, Museu de Marinha – Lisboa, Hemeroteca Municipal de Lisboa, Aquário Vasco da Gama – Lisboa, Arquivo Municipal de Lisboa, Arquivo Municipal de Oeiras.

I See That I See What You Don’t See is the official Dutch contribution to Broken Nature – the XXII Triennale di Milano curated by Paola Antonelli. The whole project took the complex relationships between light and dark, between seeing and not seeing, as a starting point for an exploration of their conflicting effects on humans, the Earth and other organisms.

The Netherlands is one of the most illuminated countries on the globe. Its productive landscape – dependent on data, technology and energy – illustrates a 24 hour economy that emphasises efficiency and growth. At the same time, this territory reflects the changing relationship with the natural rhythms connected to, and affected by, the cycles of light and darkness. In a world that is always switched on, the traditional dichotomy between day and night seems no longer relevant in terms of productivity, while the experience of clear, starry skies has become a rarity.
I See That I See What You Don’t See speculated on design as a destructive as well as restorative endeavour. As borders between nature, ecology, technology and culture increasingly fade, the project argues that today’s environment is the result of persistent acts of design.

For the XXII Triennale di Milano, the project deployed the panorama as a spatial model. Originally designed to create the illusion of a panoptic vision of the world, the panorama here articulates a fragmented, non-binary, and incomplete representation of a contemporary landscape. This viewing mechanism acts as a carrier of research as well as a layered horizon encapsulating historical and current modes of seeing. Dioramas, projections, or smooth screens reveal research, films, performances, sound and scent-scapes designed by the different contributors. These are openings to what we don’t generally get, or choose, to see. Together they evidence how current modes of understanding the environment and the multispecies relationship with darkness are designed, and how they could therefore be redesigned.

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The Tapestry Rooms of the Royal Palace in Milan have been contextualised as a place where the codified meaning of a visual system would weave together both political outlook and artistic value: basically, every tapestry is a form of writing by images, ornaments and signs that hint at deeper, complex meanings, today ever more difficult to pick out.
At the same time, these surfaces withhold codes and conventions that lay down the rules for the interface between elements and their decoding viewed as an open system which from fluid material (information), takes on specific form and meaning, determined by reference to the work itself.

The plot further thickens with references to Ovid’s Metamorphoses: the leading theme of the tapestries and a key text of the classical world, telling of the dilemma of becoming, of transformation and of the mutability of the natural state of things, with an absolutely contemporary truthfulness and intensity.
The narrative itinerary of the exhibition unfolds through four installations commissioned to Space Popular, Sabine Marcelis, Constance Guisset and Qu Lei Lei that fostered participatory interaction on behalf of the public.
They seek out a correspondence with the hosting space and with the Myth, from the multiform dimensions of Medea to the incarnation of Scylla, only to then experience the virtual company of the Argonauts.

In the context of the 25^th Ljubljana Design Biennial (2017), the initial concept focused its attention on lateral trends showing that more and more people in Europe were leaving cities and settling in rural and other non-urban contexts.
Although the city remained the model within which the evolution of contemporary society was discussed and interpreted, and the absolute number of people living in large urban centres continued to increase, data pointed to a significant shift that is framed as a new phenomenon: young people who have grown up in an urbanized model are taking their values to other decentralized contexts.
Considering the Slovenian geographical, political, and economic aspects, BIO25 Biennial became an occasion to test the consequences of this initial paradigm. The country appeared to be the perfect foundation for a discussion of the status of this global shift and as a way to test the “faraway” as a yet undefined area to explore once again.

Faraway, So Close investigated the unprecedented ways with which the contemporary population interprets and activates the alter-urban by considering the “alter-“ as linked both to the notion of an alternative and to the concept of coexistence.
New liberating frictions could emerge from the cohabitation of remote meanings and contemporary habits in the search for new territories to which we can give meaning, places that can be re-inhabited, where ancient relationships can be re-enacted, basic coexistences re-imagined. At the collective level, it was a matter of inventing a common world and creating a global space for exchange.
The theoretical appropriation of the alter-urban within the context of BIO25 has been made possible by the de-centralization of the biennial itself and also by the observations and responses of the participants.

Seven multidisciplinary teams, led by international guest designers in dialogue with seven Slovenian professionals, were asked to explore precise locations as contemporary ruins, countryside, caves, forest, post-industrial sites, the Alps and the Mediterranean Sea as platforms from which to launch a discussion about our broader contemporary social condition.
Each project started with the formulation of a story, the so-called episode, where real context and hyper-fiction intersect. The overall goal was to activate a discourse around these situations, formulating questions and opening up possible scenarios and visions. Thus each location became a discursive space for a theoretical and design-related speculation.

For the designers, working in a precise local context provided an opportunity to discover their identity through an itinerary. Expeditionary projects work as a practice for the re-appropriation not only of our relation with the land, but also of the design field.
And each biennial fights its battle on the ground. BIO25 actually left the institution, decentralizing across the whole country, and thus found a different ground on which to test its efficiency and reach new audiences. The exhibition encapsulates the hardware of the biennial itself, focusing on two different categories to explore – site-specific and museum – both considered by the teams through the design of two binary installations.
If the aim of the on-site permanent installations was the construction of a specific dialogue with the location, including the respective municipalities, institutions, and inhabitants, the museum represented the state of this specific instant in time and its urgency.

Faraway So Close
25th Ljubljana Design Biennial
organised by MAO, Slovenia’s national Museum of Architecture and Design.
more info here

Curators: Angela Rui, Maja Vardjan
Assistant curator: Claudia Mainardi

Episodes:

Underground Release
Location: Grosuplje – Mayor’s Cave
Led by Formafantasma (Simone Farresin, Andrea Trimarchi) + Andrej Detela (theorist and scientist).
Participants: Dan Adlešič, Patrick Herron, Eva Jäger, Daniele Misso, Isabella Rinaldi. Special Special thanks to Patrick Lawrie.
Associates: Municipality of Grosuplje / The Mayor’s Cave, Tourist and Environment Association of Grosuplje / Marmor, Sežana d. d., Company for the Production and Proccesing of Natural Stone / Karst Research Institute / Geological Survey of Slovenia / The Notranjska – Museum Postojna / Society for Cave Biology, Tular Cave Laboratory / The Regional Development Agency of the Ljubljana Urban Region / Ljubljana Tourism.

Occupying Woods
Location: Kočevje – Rožni studenec
Led by Matali Crasset + Matej Fegus (entrepreneur).
Participants: Petra Bukovinski, Karolina Ferenc, Annika Frye, Marcin Liminowicz, Jurij Lozić, Martina Obid Mlakar, Daniel Riegler, Pola Salicka.
Associates: Municipality of Kočevje / Slovenia Forest Service Kočevje / Slovenian State Forests / Public Agency for Tourism and Culture Kočevje / Gymnasium and Secondary School Kočevje / The Urban Lair, Association for Development of Spatial Culture / Kočevje Regional Museum / Tiled stoves producer Robert Žuman / Kočevje Business Incubator / Slovene Ethonographic Museum / National Museum of Contemporary History.

After Utopia
Location: Trbovlje – Pavillion next to Workers Cultural Centre
Led by Point Supreme + Iztok Kovač (choreographer, teacher and dancer).
Participants: Ground Action (Carlalberto Amadori, Roberto Zancan, Matteo D’Ambros, Francesco Cucchiara with Riccardo Simioli and Gabriele Cirami); Locument (Romea Muryn, Francisco Lobo); Gaja Mežnarić Osole, Museo Wunderkammer (Giusi Campisi, Luca Bertoldi, Cristina Mattiucci); Salottobuono (Matteo Ghidoni with Giuseppe Cirillo and Eugenio Nuzzo); Soft Baroque (Saša Štucin, Nicholas Gardner). Special thanks to Jan Krek, Aljaž Rudolf, Janvit Sabadin, Nataša Ržek, Bojan Mihailović.
Associates: Municipality of Trbovlje / Workers Cultural Centre Trbovlje / Punkt, Association for the Development of Creativity and the Creative Industries / Trbovlje Hrastnik Mine / Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana / Zasavje Museum of Trbovlje / National Museum of Contemporary History / Slovene Ethnographic Museum.

Brand New Coexistence
Location: Ljubljana — Museum of Architecture and Design
Led by Didier Fiuza Faustino + Mojca Kumerdej (Sci-fi novelist)
Participants: Polona Dolžan, Miloš Kosec, Julien Manaira, Margarethe Müller, Lilian Pala, Simon Rowe, Nikolaj Salaj. Programmer: Žiga Vučko. Special thanks to Lauro Foletti.
Associates: Municipality of Ljubljana – Department of Urbanism / Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning / The Public Company Ljubljanska parkirišča in tržnice d. o. o. / The Regional Development Agency of the Ljubljana Urban Region / Ljubljana Tourism.

Countryside Reloaded
Location: Lendava — Genterovci
Led by Mischer’Traxler + Klemen Košir (Food researcher and cook)
Participants: Sara Brown, Lucia Massari, Nina Mršnik, Johanna Schmeer, Giulia Soldati, Jakob Travnik.
Associates: Municipality of Lendava / Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food / Slovenian National Rural Network, MAFF / Genterovci Bilingual Primary School / Pomelaj, Cooperative for Rural Development / Office for Tourism and Culture Beltinci / The Public Company Ljubljanska parkirišča in tržnice d. o. o. / Slovene Ethonographic Museum.

Resilience of the Past
Location: Kobarid, Soča Valley
Led by Studio Folder + Renata Salecl (Philosopher, sociologist, criminologist).
Studio Folder: Marco Ferrari, Elisa Pasqual, Alessandro Busi, Francesca Lucchitta, Giovanni Pignoni.
Participants: Merve Bedir, Giulia Cordin, David Górny, Gili Merin, MONURIKI (Marco Minicucci, Luis Pimentel, Livia Shamir), Ana Pečar, Anna Positano. Design and production: Studio Folder with Gisto (Alessandro Mason, Gabriele Lucchitta, Matteo Giustozzi). Special thanks to Marco Bernardini, Agostino Bucci, Pietro Leoni.
Associates: Municipality of Kobarid / The Kobarid Museum / Tourist Information Centre Kobarid / Geological Survey of Slovenia / Slovenia Forestry Institute / Stato Maggiore dell’Esercito–Ufficio Storico (Rome, Italy) /.sterreichischen Nationalbibliothek (Vienna, Austria) / Martina Schiavon, Ma.tre de conf.rences en Histoire des sciences et des techniques, Universit. de Lorraine (Nancy, France) / Slovene Ethonographic Museum / National Museum of Contemporary History.

New Heroes
Location: Piran – Hall Monfort
Led by Odo Fioravanti + Marin Medak (entrepreneur, adventurer and speaker).
Participants: Bolleria Industrial (Paula Currás, Eugenio Fernández, Ana Olmedo, Enrique Ventosa), Luca Fattore, Juan Nicolás Paez, Fabio Petronilli, Elisa Testori. Special thanks to Paolo Giacomazzi, Andrea Zaneboni.
Associates: Municipality of Piran / Coastal Galleries Piran / Sergej Mašera Maritime Museum Piran / National Museum of Contemporary History.

Here / Now was the title of Operæ 2015, the Turin-based Independent Design Festival run for 8 editions, till the closing one of 2017.
For the first time, in 2015 a curator has been asked to curate the event.
The juxtaposition of the works of the thirty or so selected exhibitors who inhabited the rooms of Palazzo Cavour brought to light a cultural climate that was the result of the progressive interest aimed at understanding phenomenal reality, and focused on design practices, including audience participations, performances and workshops.
The purpose of Operæ 2015 as a festival had not been the search for a new meaning of things and design, goods and production. On the contrary, the aim was to reconsider and investigate a renewed design practice no longer represented by industrial design but directed toward the observation of matter and its manifestations.

Here / Now was a search for innovative points of view on the notion of ontological observation understood as a metaphor for the self-production of the world.
The overall theme of this edition included two broad categories, Artifice/Nature and Me/We – two tangents that identified parallel and ongoing transitions in design practice, felt to be a form of an integral liberalism that encourages human beings to build a closer relationship with others, human and other-than-human agents.
The selected projects were based on the use of natural processes and their manipulation to construct a landscape in which the Human-Nature relationship meant seeking a new qualitative condition of production.
The entire event was not simply an exhibition, festival, thematic show or fair. it was, above all, an opportunity to experiment with a new model of a real platform where – through thematic and curatorial extension – research, experimentation and individual entrepreneurship could emerge and merge into a space dedicated to collective debate, sharing and collaboration.
In addition to the main exhibition, the 2015 edition of Operae featured the exhibition “Piemonte Handmade,” which presented projects born from a new collaboration between twelve artisans from Piedmont and twelve Italian designers.

Operæ: Sara Fortunati, Paola Zini
Curator: Angela Rui
Assistant curator: Anna Paola Buonanno
Production manager: Benedetta Lenzi
Visual identity: undesign
Exhibition design: /LAM
Photo credits: Pepe Fotografia

Exhibitiors: Davide Aquini, Federico Peri, Gum Design, Zp studio, Lanificio Leo, Maddalena Selvini, Portego, Camp Design Gallery, Josefina Munoz, Laura Couto Rosado, Laura Daza, Marco Guazzini, Ingrid Hulskamp, Nina Van Bart, Daan Spanjers, Aliki Van der Kruijs, Noman, Cosmo, Floor Nijdern, Studio Passalacqua, Teresa Van Dongen, Tijmen Smeulders, Plusdesign gallery, Omer Polak, Gio Minelli, Olivier Van Herpt, Sander Wassink, Jenia, Peralia, Luuk Van Den Broek.

Piemonte Handmade: Antonio Aricò con Sohelia Dilfanian, Atelier Biagetti con Antica Fabbrica Passamanerie Massia Vittorio 1843, Blumerandfriends con ECAT Orologi e Campane, Carlo Contin con Piccola Falegnameria, Chiara Onida con Alta Moda Anna Giroli, Federico Floriani con Verbano Velluti, Giulio Iacchetti con Alberto Tallone Editore, JVLT con Roberto Figurelli, Paolo Ulian con Reale Restauri, Sebastiano Tonelli con Bottega Fagnola, Zanellato/Bortotto con Andrea Besana, Zaven con Recycled Stones

In the fall 2014 Triennale Design Museum presented the very first comprehensive monographic exhibition on Ugo La Pietra, from ‘60s to date, that examined the humanistic side of this eclectic designer.
An architect by training but also an artist, filmmaker (and actor), editor, musician, cartoonist and teacher, Ugo La Pietra has always been a critical observer of the real world.
He has sounded out, analysed, criticised, loved and redesigned reality with rare insight, revealing the contradictions inherent in culture and society. His entire activity, which is so varied and complex as to be difficult to pin down in theoretical terms of criticism and discipline, should be seen as a long militancy in anti-design.

His career has now spanned half a century, going through significant moments of contemporary history, with Brera as the capital of culture in the sixties, the years of protest in the seventies, and the advent of mass media and their effects on the psychological and domestic world of the eighties.
The most unexplored but also radical aspect was however his militancy towards the globalisation of the world, before the notion had gained ground, by moving towards the world of craftsmanship throughout the country. In those days the mainstream considered it to be more of a non value than a source of manual skills and culture, and the viable alternative for the design system that it has since turned out to be.

With more than 1.000 objects and archive material, the exhibition follows a route that, from the conceptual origins of his thought, manifests itself through a story – through research and experimentation, objects, device and environments – which from the individual, spreads out towards observation, reappropriation, the design of the living space, be it theoretical, inside or outside, urban or imaginary, by subscribing to the relationship between the individual and the environment as the only dialectical pole. The environment is never considered to be the strictly urban or ecological factor, but the phenomena of reality, amplifying not just the sense of the design context, but of the whole emotional, anthropological and existential baggage of our being in the world.
Accompanied by audio-visual materials, a huge number of works and documents help create a cosmology of design which emerges from a global vision of Ugo La Pietra’s work.

Ugo La Pietra. Progetto Disequilibrante
26 November 2014 – 15 February 2015, Triennale di Milano
Curator: Angela Rui
Exhibition Design: Ugo La Pietra
Visual Identity: POMO