Committed but not necessarily ideological, mobilised for the environment, above all in favour of a wider social inclusiveness. These are the main traits shared by the designers mapped by “Infinite Creativity for a Finite World”, a research project led by the curator and lecturer at ENSAD in Paris, Anna Bernagozzi. Launched as a contribution to the European call for papers 4Cs (from Conflict to Conviviality through Creativity and Culture) and already anticipated with an exhibition in Paris during the last lockdown, the platform promotes the work of young designers who see social innovation as an opportunity to experiment with capillary interventions driven by the desire for a synthesis between ecology and community redemption, often pursued through the tools of co-creation.
Young designers: five emblematic projects for a sustainable future
A new generation is moving towards increasingly circular, localised and regenerative practices, both for the environment and for the communities they serve.
photo Andrès Baron
@dach&zephir
@dach&zephir
photo Andrès Baron
photo Simone Ballen
photo Simon Ballen
photo Simon Ballen
photo Simon Ballen
photo Simon Ballen Botero
photo Simon Ballen
photo Eugenia Morpurgo
photo Eugenia Morpurgo
photo Eugenia Morpurgo
Stool codesigned with Opendesk, London, 2016, photo Andrea De Chirico
photo Flavia Baldini
photo Flavia Baldini
photo Arturo Zilli
Alexia Venot with the ENSAD's students Zoé Arnaud, Pauline Aubry, Antoine Behagel, Marianna Faleri, Séverine Luxerrois, Phi Lou-van. Photo Antoine Behagel
photo Antoine Behagel
photo Alexia Venot
foto Alexia Venot
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- Giulia Zappa
- 01 October 2021
“With Infinite Creativity for a Finite World, I wanted to highlight works that allow the public and users to understand the design process and have the chance to experience it. I believe it is important to make people understand how projects like this can have an impact on everyday life, starting from fundamental issues such as the environment, post-colonialism and feminism,” Bernagozzi tells us.
Out of the twenty projects on the platform, we have selected five that are emblematic and enable us to encounter the ideas, interests and attitudes of tomorrow's designers.
Cultural bricoleurs, the duo dach&zephir (Florian Dach and Dimitri Zephir) have turned their investigation on the creolisation of design processes into an original way of analysing the practices to re-appropriate the meaning of everyday objects belonging to specific local communities. Conceived as a performative and participatory analysis, their research on the Chien knife, an everyday object in the French Antilles, conjures up of new functions, made possible by the hybridisation of humble components and materials. Transformed into an augmented object, the knife becomes a multi-purpose tool for cleaning fish, peeling fruit, or even just resting perpendicularly on a surface or hanging from belt loops thanks to the addition of a hook. https://dachzephir.com/
Exhibition and research project curated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor at ENSAD and curator. www.infinitecreativityfiniteworld.com
Exhibition and research project curated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor at ENSAD and curator. www.infinitecreativityfiniteworld.com
Exhibition and research project curated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor at ENSAD and curator. www.infinitecreativityfiniteworld.com
Exhibition and research project curated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor at ENSAD and curator. www.infinitecreativityfiniteworld.com
An assistant at Formafantasma, Colombian Simon Ballen Botero's research focuses on enhancing the symbolic relationships between objects, people and the local dimension. With Suelo Orfebre, Ballen Botero investigates a by-product of the gold mines of the Marmato region in Colombia: the jagua. Similar to sand and originally used for the production of glass bottles, jagua is now replaced by cheaper and more stable materials and pumped by the ton into the Cauca river, causing inevitable environmental damage. Working together with Pieter van Dyck, a Dutch glassblower, Ballen Botero ran workshops with young people from local communities to imagine new ways of using jagua. The collective projects from the workshop provide the lifeblood to regenerate craftsmanship: it is a way not only of creating new forms of income, but also of giving back the local imagination a leading role, decolonising it from design solutions that are typical of western culture. https://www.simonballen.com/
Exhibition and research project curated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor at ENSAD and curator. www.infinitecreativityfiniteworld.com
Exhibition and research project curated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor at ENSAD and curator. www.infinitecreativityfiniteworld.com
Exhibition and research project curated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor at ENSAD and curator. www.infinitecreativityfiniteworld.com
Exhibition and research project curated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor at ENSAD and curator. www.infinitecreativityfiniteworld.com
Exhibition and research project curated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor at ENSAD and curator. www.infinitecreativityfiniteworld.com
Exhibition and research project curated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor at ENSAD and curator. www.infinitecreativityfiniteworld.com
Syntropic materials installation at the alla Maison POC pour l'economie circulaire presented within the program of Lille World Design Capital and curated by Giovanna Massoni
Exhibition and research project curated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor at ENSAD and curator. www.infinitecreativityfiniteworld.com
ÖLÖTL, corn composit developed by Anne-Sophie Flores.
Tomato filament by Canapuglia
Motivated by the awareness that production does not necessarily have to seek to maximise yield and profit, but also environmental and social sustainability, Andrea De Chirico from Rome founded Superlocal 0 miles production, a decentralised platform to encourage bottom-up production of objects. Thanks to a network of designers and small local studios, mapped and made accessible to potential users/ producers, Superlocal encourages co-creation workshops and the implementation of objects that hybridise digital fabrication technologies with traditional techniques and valorise waste materials.
Roma, 2020. Workshop at Kalma
Roma, 2020. Workshop at Kalma
Exhibition and research project curated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor at ENSAD and curator. www.infinitecreativityfiniteworld.com
Workshop all'Università di Bolzano, 2018
A French designer and researcher who has distinguished herself for her experimental projects on textiles and their relationship with society (Hay&Husk), Venot has worked with some ENSAD students - Zoé Arnaud, Pauline Aubry, Antoine Behagel, Marianna Faleri, Séverine Luxerrois, Phi Lou-van - to identify a form of aggregation capable of fostering a renewed collective awareness of living species. The result of the research is the Kombucha bar, a mobile trolley that aims not only to promote the properties of Kombucha, a fermented beverage that is good for the body, but also to encourage the exchange of knowledge about approaches to healing that are often marginalised. Prepared through a series of meetings, debates and workshops involving numerous designers, artists and botanists, the trolley bar becomes a device for renewing the link with the ecosystem and defending the female transmission of ancestral healing practices.
The Kombucha bar with invasive and medicinal plants
Exhibition and research project curated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor at ENSAD and curator. www.infinitecreativityfiniteworld.com
Exhibition and research project curated by Anna Bernagozzi, professor at ENSAD and curator. www.infinitecreativityfiniteworld.com