Formafantasma at Fabrica

In the second week of February, Italian design studio Formafantasma conducted a discussion led-workshop at Fabrica, the Benetton research center. Considering the complex relationship between human beings, nature and production, Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi invited participants to consider the local territory, which surrounds Tadao Ando's Fabrica building, in order to stimulate inspiration. "We asked everybody to find some raw and basic materials," says Formafantasma, "such as earth, farm rubbish, stones, and pieces of trees."

The workshop's first exercise dealt with basic tools like knives, brushes, and measuring objects built with the found materials; the idea was to get back on the origin of the production process, in which nature is not compromised. On the second half of the workshop participants were asked to develop proposals, and utopian/dystopian scenarios on the future relationship between human being and nature.

"Forma Fantasma really bring their spirit and their mood and put people thinking forward. In this particular case, nature became a language more than a focus." Sam Baron, design director at Fabrica, said. "It is interesting to see how graphic designers, starting from an educational point of view, build a narrative with objects."

Participant Simone Benvenuto proposed an shipment system based on the ocean and river current. Goods would be shipped in a gelatin box, and over time water and the changing temperature would melt the packaging at the end of the shipment. While working with animal and vegetable gelatins, Simone discovered interesting technical properties.

Dean Brown focused his project on the extreme empathic relationship between man and plants: making a series of home technologies controlled by plants, based on scientific studies of the reactive capabilities of vegetables.

Svetlana Mikhailova used the movements of the branches to make unusual and abstract patterns, which were lead by the wind.

Throughout the workshop, participants gained a different point of view to look through nature outside formal schemes. "The whole projects series is based on a reflective sensitivity generated by observing nature," they noted. "We understood during this workshop that nature can be part of the production process instead of the victim of it."