Starting from materials

Twenty projects from the Material Futures MA integrating analogue and digital materials in a quest to find new responses to the needs, desires and challenges of the future. #MDW2016

Material Futures, Saint Martins College
In the rich and dynamic world of design schools, which animated Milan’s Ventura area too this year, the section occupied by projects from the Material Futures MA – run by Central Saint Martins College of Arts & Design, part of London’s University of the Arts – definitely took the lion’s share of the variety and brilliance of the research work presented.
Material Futures, Saint Martins College
Top: Hanan Alkouh, Sea-Meat Seaweed, seaweed to substitute meat. Material Futures, Central Saint Martins College of Arts & Design, Ventura Lambrate 2016. Above: Lesley-Ann Daly, Anthropomorphic Sensory Augmentation, human organs that can be "listened"
This course was called Textile Futures up to a couple of years ago, but was already very broadly based – it has always concentrated its work on materials, understood as a starting-point for the design process. The student projects explore the intersection between craftsmanship, science and technology, ranging across architecture, product design, communication and analysis. This year, under the guidance of Kieren Jones, the work started from globally important areas issues as climate change, renewable resources and digital citizenship, with the aim of developing future applications for medical treatments, sustainable energy, migration and synthetic biology.
Valentina Coraglia, Inedible Futures
Valentina Coraglia, Inedible Futures, giant pasta butterfly made with detritus from the Aquila earthquake. Material Futures, Central Saint Martins College of Arts & Design, Ventura Lambrate 2016
The Inedible Futures project by Valentina Coraglia, an Italian, presented a sort of giant pasta butterfly made with detritus from the Aquila earthquake – a way of investigating whether design can be a tool for focusing attention on socio-cultural themes. In contrast, the materials used by Lesley-Ann Daly in her work were human organs. In her Anthropomorphic Sensory Augmentation, she connected them to sensors that allow us to hear the sounds they make, bringing us into contact with our state of health.
Benedetta Martino, Daily Fetish
Benedetta Martino, Daily Fetish, fetish lunch courses to diminuish pressure of our everyday lives. Material Futures, Central Saint Martins College of Arts & Design, Ventura Lambrate 2016
Benedetta Martino’s Daily Fetish asked whether fetishist situations could help lessen the pressure of our everyday lives: her photos and videos offered a corresponding interpretation of different lunch courses. Hanan Alkouh’s Sea-Meat Seaweed asked what would come of the culture of the rearing and consumption of meat in a world without animals, proposing to retain the representative, formal aspect and substitute only the material itself. The Phantom Sensations project by Niloufar Esfandiary consisted of a set of accessories that aim to combat phantom limb syndrome in people who have undergone an amputation.

12–17 April 2016
Material Futures

Via Ventura 14, Milan

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