After years of pondering stasis, we are now all set. Meanwhile, the design field has been transforming. New forms of thinking and making have emerged. Onomatopee is now daring designers to act.
Through three distinct shows, Onomatopee presents the work of designers who critically question and re-think the role of design and the designer.
With this critical gaze, Onomatopee turns into an active laboratory, offering makers, agents, thinkers and performers a playground for experiment. We are not just interested in design solutions, but rather in the possibility of creating new opportunities for action. This implies awareness to how you work, the process.
It is on those processes, that anticipate and inform the design practice, that we turn our attention.The RE-design-er offers us the ability to continuously question ourselves.
A vibrant public program invites you to experience and discuss, out loud and freely, how, why, and for whom does design happen?
RE-Design-er is curated by Cecilia Casabona in collaboration with Onomatopee.
Design in Conversation
What should a designer know? And how do their different expertises and critical understanding inform their practice? Onomatopee invites five designers to respond by crafting an object and reflecting on how they think and work.
The exhibition “Design in Conversation” arises from a series of conversations between the curator and the designers to critically inquire how design can take action. Through a process of asking the makers how they think and work, four projects came to life, inviting the audience to engage in further discussions and stimulate a continuing dialogue.
This exhibition was inspired by the book “Designedly ways of knowing: a working inventory of things a designer should know”, written by Danah Abdulla and published in 2022 by Onomatopee. The book includes a compendium of “things” (expertises, theoretical frameworks, historical facts and relevant figures) that aims to inform the practice of the contemporary designer.
Featuring designers: Bruno Baietto, Ramón Jiménez Cárdenas, Flora Lechner, Eleonora Toniolo, Jannis Zell & Lisa Ertel
Graphic Events: At The Asphalt-level
Most graphics have little to do with design. In this exhibition, James Dyer and Nick Deakin focus on the peculiar ways that graphics exist in daily life, at the asphalt- level.
The lives of everyday graphics are never entirely graspable. James Dyer and Nick Deakin are inspired by the potential for experimenting with graphics in new ways and revaluing them. The authors of the book “Graphic Events: A Realist Account of Graphic Design,” curate a series of printings which take the audience on a journey into the life of graphics. The printings reveal new stories, that often stay unnoticed and extend beyond the traditional understanding of what graphic design is.
Dr James Dyer is senior lecturer of Graphic Design at the University of Huddersfield. Nick Deakin is senior lecturer of Graphic Design at Leeds Arts University.
Despise design, all bless the Fair!
Design fairs stand as salient events for designers to gather and assemble a choral, hopeful image of the world to come. Beyond the social significance and the economic forces of design, these fairs manifest the contradictions and precariousness embedded in the landscape of design. Temporary exhibition materials generate enormous amounts of exhibition waste in opposition to environmental concerns; opaque curatorial practices fly in the face of inclusivity; self- absorbed narcissism and desire for !star-designers” relegate collective possibilities to the margins.
Inspired on the seven deadly sins, this collective exhibition targets the monetized culture of design fairs and challenges the represented practices within. Via evocative performances the group of 14 designers present the sinful side of design celebrations seen from the figurative teachings of Sloth, Pride, Wrath, Envy, Greed, Lust and Gluttony.
The project has initiated by a group of 14 designers, mostly based in The Netherlands. The group is subdivided into 7 groups, each of which is assigned to one of the 7 sins.
Hsin Min Chan and Shun-Chih Chang: Sloth
Miguel Guevara Parra and Marta Ríos Pizà (The Ironing Board): Pride
Ned Kaar and Bianca Schick and Sofia Topi (Scylla): Wrath
James Grünfeld and Flora Lechner: Envy
Bruno Baietto and Sergi Casero: Greed
Ines Borovac and Ginevra Petrozzi: Lust
Alejandro Cerón: Gluttony
