Dignity, playfulness, truth, dream, memory and language are the keywords in this podcast series led by André Cruz during the Porto Design Biennale.

The Voices From the Atelier podcast series is a set of polyhedral conversations with designers and people whose lives have been dedicated to designing worlds. 

Taking the Porto Design Biennale theme of Alter-Realities as a departing point, André Cruz will enter designers’ studios to understand how, in the kaleidoscopic contexts of the present, different responses to challenging questions are being drawn. The scope of practices put forward in the 2021 biennale reveals the six sub-themes, one per episode: Play, Truth, Dignity, Dream, Memory and Language.

Each episode thus becomes a space of exchange with our guests, and of reaction to the local-to-global conditions that they are confronted with, as are many other designers.

 

This first episode is dedicated to Truth. What is truth? How many truths are possible? How many coexist in a single space at the same time? Does it make sense to establish a necessary link between beauty and truth? To talk about these and other issues, Voices from the Atelier welcomes researcher, director and artist Susan Schuppli and Matteo Moretti, designer, lecturer and co-founder of Sheldon Studio.

Is there room and are we open to new, emerging models, perhaps to models that are more compatible with all other living entities? Or are we confined to what Arturo Escobar defines as the patriarcal Western capital modern model? To discuss these and other topics I have invited designer, educator and researcher Annelys de Vet and cultural researcher, designer and editor of DEEM journal, Alice Grandoit.

In our time, there has been a resurgence of interest in the use of Play in the construct of communities, social environments and interfaces that promote life quality and the growth of creative and responsible citizens. To help us better understand the importance of Play in design we invited Marta Rios, a designer that balances between design and comedy, and the designer, artist and curator Erik Kessels for a talk about how Play can help us look differently at things.

Roughly seven thousand languages are spoken in the world today. Taking as a starting point the investigation on language carried out by Eduardo Staszowski and Virginia Tassinari we want to explore the importance of words in the politics of design today. This episode also has the contribution of Paul Sahre, Alice Grandoit, Marta Rios, Susan Schuppli and Susana Carreiras with their personal view over each of the 6 sub-themes of the Voices From the Atelier series.

We are what we do, especially what we do to change what we are, wrote Eduardo Galleano on his Voices of Time book.

Memory is directly linked to imagination. We are shaped by the memory of ancient practices, habits and modes of living. Design is based on memories as well, whether visual, physical, sensory, ethnographic or cultural, but we must not ignore the role that design has played in sustaining outdated civilizational models. Focusing on this topic, we invited the designer and professor Paul Sahre and the cultural researcher, designer and editor of DEEM Journal, Alice Grandoit for a conversation about design and memory.

In indigenous communities, dream works as a tool to find answers to their daily life. This is also what we do in our design practice. Dreaming can also be a very enlightening way to engage with other people, to be connected, no matter if we are asleep or wide awake. For the six episode of Voices form Atelier, we invited Susana Carreiras and Alastair Fuad-Luke to reflect on this theme. Susana is a designer actively present in the Peruvian jungle and Alastair is the main curator of the Porto Design Biennale, educator, activist and design facilitator.

Credits: Concept, edition, texts and mixing: André Cruz Music: Pedro Geraldes Text edition: Manuelle Freire ©2021 Porto Design Biennale