Why do we need investigative design? In this episode, the Italian designers Simone Farresin and Andrea Trimarchi tell our cofounder, Paola Antonelli, about their pioneering work in investigating design's impact on complex, often contentious areas of our lives, from the toxic, often illegal global trade in digital waste to the social, to the environmental devastation and exploitative employment practices associated with the timber industry.

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Having met as students, Simone and Andrea founded the design studio Formafantasma in the Dutch city of Eindhoven in 2009. It now has offices in Milan and in Rotterdam. Their practice is based on research, and their deep investigations into the ecological, historical, political, and social forces shaping design today. The outcome of their investigations is relayed through their exhibitions, research, teaching, and in the exquisite objects they design for commercial production worldwide.

In this episode, Simone and Andrea talk to Paola about their use of design as a lens to and understand the world, and how they deploy the formal elegance of objects as Trojan horses to unveil unethical practices and exploitative systems of extraction that are entangled with design and production - exposing them so they can be dismantled.

Three projects in particular illustrate their approach. Ore Streams (National Gallery Victoria in Melbourne, 2017, and Triennale di Milano, 2019) focused on electronic waste, while Cambio (Serpentine, London, 2020) examined the global ecology of timber and Oltre Terra (National Museum in Oslo, 2023) studied the systems of extraction and production of wool, and therefore the complex relationship between animals, humans, and the environment.

You can find images of the projects Simone and Andrea describe in this episode on our Instagram feed @design.emergency. Thank you for listening!

Design Emergency is supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts

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