Porto Design Biennale 2021. This is the last conversation of this series with the main curators of this event dedicated to Alter-Realities. This time with Alberto Altés and Ana Jara.

VOICES FROM THE ATELIER
Porto Design Biennale 2021

Can there only be one Truth? Are there multiple Truths? The Modern World is dealing with an even more present distorted notion of reality. Social media, corporations, populist politicians, all have been contributing to a chaotic jungle full of distorted truths. Even maps, throughout times, have been designed so that national propaganda could be more effective. How can design contribute to a more real understanding of data, facts, geopolitics?


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

Todays conversation guests are Fran Edgerley from the design and architecture collective Assemble and Inês Marques from the social and collaborative design studio El Warcha. This nice chat happened in the context of the Porto Design Biennale where these two thinkers will have an important role as curators.

During this conversation I had the chance to get to know better Fran and Inês and also listen to their thoughts on care and alter-realities to be presented in this year’s biennale, in Porto.

Professor Carlo Ratti teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he directs the Senseable City Lab, and is a founding partner of the international design office Carlo Ratti Associati.

Ratti’s work has been exhibited worldwide and two of his best known projects have been included by TIME Magazine in the list of the ‘Best Inventions of the Year’. 

Esquire Magazine has featured him in the "Best and Brightest" list and also Wired Magazine in the “Smart List." Blueprint Magazine included him among the "25 People who will Change the World of Design," and Fast Company named him as one of the "50 Most Influential Designers in America."

Ratti thinks and speaks at a fast pace, probably due to the diversity of worlds he’s constantly in. It was a pleasure to speak to Carlo and listen to his ideas and intentions for the Porto Design Biennale 2021.

In this episode I had the pleasure to have Sam Baron answering to my questions about him and his involvement with the Porto Design Biennale 2021.

Baron, who was selected by Philippe Starck as one of ten most important designers for the next decade, has been living between Portugal and France. This awarded designer’s practice has been around the questioning of the utility of today’s material productions and the very existence of new archetypes. 

Sam Baron talks about his process and shares his visions on the role of design today as well as the idea behind the curatorship for the Porto Design Biennale 2021 along with Caroline Naphegyi.

One more episode of Sumo + Porto Design Biennale 2021. Throughout the next few months I will talk to the curators who are conceiving and building this biennale dedicated to alter-realities.
In this episode I speak to Caroline Naphegyi. 
Since the year 2000, Caroline has been involved in design projects, especially in France, where she lives. Her background is fully committed to the field of design with projects like Tomorrowland or the non-profit organization Design For Change. More recently she was appointed as program director of Lille World Design Capital 2020. Throughout this episode, Caroline tells us about her involvement with the design world. She also shares her visions on the role of design today as well as the idea behind the curatorship for the Porto Design Biennale 2021 along with Sam Baron.

Second part of my talk with Alastair Fuad-Luke. Alastair is a facilitator, educator, researcher and the main curator of the 2021 Porto Design Biennale. Throughout the next few months I will talk to the curators who are conceiving and building this biennale dedicated to alter-realities.

If you haven’t listened to this episode’s first part I would do it now and come back to this one later. 

Welcome to this new episode of Sumo: the first one entirely in English, because this is a series that came about from a partnership between Sumo and Porto-Design Biennale 2021. Throughout the next few months I will talk to the curators who are conceiving and building this biennale dedicated to alter-realities. I begin this new series with the main curator, a fascinating character called Alastair Fuad-Luke. A facilitator, educator, and researcher, whose life has been devoted to thinking and applying design to a better, more balanced, more sustainable world. Alastair has in fact published several books on this subject, such as Design Activism in 2009 or The Eco-design Handbook in 2002. In our conversation, which will be released in two parts, we talk about the life and thought of this activist, born in the North of England. Among many very pertinent ideas, I kept a specific one, which I find to be most revealing about this entire biennale of 2021: If you design the present, you actually change the future. 

I hope you enjoy the first part of our talk. In a week’s time I will release the 2nd part. Good listening!

Em Novembro de 2020 tive esta conversa com a Susana Carreiras. A Susana vive na selva peruana a cerca de 9000 kms de distância de Portugal. A importância do trabalho desta designer nascida em terras minhotas está na proximidade que estabeleceu com as comunidades indígenas, com a sua história, cultura, hábitos e vivências ancestrais. 

Sabemos que o mundo está cada vez mais formatado e concentrado na parcialidade de um pensamento tipo. É, também por isso que sinto que este é um testemunho de enorme valor. 

Não havendo uma opção mais válida do que outra, a acção da Susana mostra-nos como o alcance do design está muito para além da espuma dos dias das identidades visuais e dos kernings desta vida.

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O Sumo é um divertimento meu que começou a ser esboçado em 2019 e só foi lançado já estávamos nós fechados em casa com uma pandemia às costas. Termino esta primeira temporada num dia em que paira a incerteza sobre um novo confinamento geral. Vou aproveitar a pausa para pensar no que fazer no futuro em relação ao Sumo. Interessa-me correr atrás desta prática que entretanto se perdeu que é falar sobre o que se faz. Procuro recuperar a ideia presente no livro que nasceu do ciclo de conversas Falando do Ofício publicado em 1986 pela Sociedade Tipográfica e manter aberta a antena para o “atelier”.

Há que repensar os meios, a forma, os métodos e as dificuldades presentes nesta espécie de one man band. 

Quero agradecer o importante suporte que foi dado no Patreon pela Mariana, a Ana, o Miguel, o João e o Afonso. 

Mais um agradecimento ao Armando Alves, à Dayana, ao João Faria, ao José Albergaria, ao Silva, à Maria João Macedo, Mariana Pestana, Eduardo Aires, João Castro, Alda Rosa, António Silveira Gomes, Rita Huet, João Araújo, e João Nunes. Deram boas conversas e, sem eles, eles isto teria sido um longo e entediante monólogo.
À Bond Layer por todo o suporte web.

Por último, aos Oliveira Trio pela música surf carrossel que fica no ouvido. 

Espero que gostem da conversa com a Susana, desculpem algumas fragilidades sonoras provocadas pelos 9000 kms de distância. Protejam-se e até já.

Chegar ao episódio 13 com um convidado como o João Nunes é motivo de celebração. Este é o Sumo, um podcast feito por mim, André Cruz onde se fala sobre Design Gráfico, cultura visual e tudo o que gira à sua volta.

Ouço falar do João Nunes desde criança. Nestes últimos dias, em conversa com os meus pais, foram-me relatando momentos passados nos anos 80 em que estivemos sentados à mesma mesa. O João, já então um reconhecido designer e eu, com 6 ou 7 anos, eventualmente farto de os ouvir falar e a contar os minutos para irmos andar de canoa no rio Minho. 
Foram precisos uns bons 30 e poucos anos para me voltar a sentar à mesa com esta figura inquietante que gosta de pensar e que, com destreza, recruta filósofos para as conversas. É, provavelmente, daí que vem a proximidade ao pensamento de Espinoza: Deus é a natureza.

“O meu Deus é a natureza”, diz o João Nunes durante esta conversa. 

A biografia deste designer é extensa e rica. Já muito foi escrito e eu  fico-me por uma alcunha dada por um amigo em comum, o Marcos Cruz, que de forma carinhosa chama ao João Nunes o “Gepetto da Serra de Arga”.