The Polimi Design System (the School of Design, the Department of Design, and POLI.Design) presents “INTERDEPENDENCE – designing relationships”, a set of initiatives to reflect on relationships and connections through a selection of projects by students from Politecnico and around 50 international design universities in its network.
In a world where everything is in a relationship, what is the role of design?
We are deeply immersed in a network of relationships that is an integral part of each of us; to understand the infinite complexity of our world, we often tend to isolate particular aspects of an event or experience and see them as constituting the totality, narrowing our perspective. In reality, each choice we make, even the act of not choosing, has consequences that may not be immediately apparent, but it is essential to understand and move to action with awareness.
The recognition of interdependence fosters cooperation, collaboration, and the acknowledgment of shared responsibilities. It underscores the importance of considering the broader implications of actions and decisions, as they often have ripple effects that extend beyond immediate boundaries.
A plurality of approaches from which one direction emerges: design, as a discipline interconnected with a variety of systems, acts as a catalyst and inherently has the potential and responsibility to foster and shape innovative, conscious, and collaborative relationships.
“Today, more than ever, I think moving toward a design of kindness is necessary. An empathetic approach to design that, recovering the etymology of the word from proiectus, ‘to throw ahead’, aims to consider the whole, to look to the future and the collective well-being of all the actors involved and the various elements in the field”, observes Fabio Di Liberto, creative director of INTERDEPENDENCE.
The Polimi Design System, therefore, organized a widespread event, in a capillary relationship with the fabric of the city, taking place in three main venues – Fabbrica del Vapore, Campus Bovisa Durando, and Salone Satellite – plus a constellation of other locations populating the city.
In particular, at the Fabbrica del Vapore, INTERDEPENDENCE takes the shape of an international exhibition mixing and matching the projects of the students of Politecnico di Milano (Design, Architecture, and Engineering) with those of design universities’ students from all over the world. The exhibition is animated by a palimpsest of initiatives, including the extemporaneous performance of Campo Teatrale. Conceived and directed by Simon Waldvogel and inspired by his work “WDWGFH – Where Do We Go From Here”, the performance aims to create a fragmented and interconnected experience where the different performing languages and the surrounding space blend synergetically. A fusion that occurs in harmony with the bodies that populate the space, resulting in a narrative that challenges traditional boundaries between artistic and sensory elements.
The Campus Bovisa Durando will host the traditional DesignXDesigners exhibition, with a display of work by students from the School of Design, which can be visited until May 15.
Among the other initiatives featuring Polimi Design System actors are “Shaping sustainable innovations through design practice” and “Happiness”. The former, curated by Venanzio Arquilla, Patrizia Bolzan, and Carlo Emilio Standoli, will be held at the Fabbrica del Vapore, with a selection of projects created by students of the Integrated Product Design Master’s Degree course.
“Happiness”, curated by Michele De Lucchi, Francesca Balena Arista, Marco de Santi, and Francesco Clerici, together with Mosca Partners, held at Garage Gorizia, will be an exhibition of works by students from the Landscape and Interior Spatial Design workshop.
Inspired by the theme, visual identity serves as the common thread across all locations. Similarly, the exhibition design was developed with an interdisciplinary team of students from the School of Design. Organic shapes in saturated, bright colors overlap and interact in ever-changing compositions on the various exhibition materials and in the vinyl flooring made by Gerflor, the event’s technical partner, which creates areas and points of encounter and discovery; the company is enthusiastic about participating in an innovative project like Interdependence because of the issues it addresses, such as sustainability and people’s well-being, which are also essential in the design of our products that we develop.
“As a School of Design, we believe in the power of contamination between different disciplines, and we structure our courses to train future professionals to design, always taking into account the dynamics of relationships”, explains Francesco Zurlo, Dean of the School of Design at Politecnico di Milano. “Also, as a research institute, we have always worked with other entities and university institutions to connect places, visions, and knowledge and expand the boundaries of knowledge. The INTERDEPENDENCE event can exist thanks to the exchange with a vast network of international Schools that we have built over time”.
Through the beautiful diversity of students and their projects, the creative process experiences an awareness that opens to new unexplored potentials, and it is an ongoing discovery that is sparked by the INTERDEPENDENCE of design.
To learn more, visit https://www.interdependence.polimi.it
