“Galicia. Processes and Forms aims to answer the questions “Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?”, major questions of philosophy that in Galician terms are remembered as the title and refrain of one of the best-known songs by the group Siniestro Total, published in 1984 on the album Menos mal que nos queda Portugal.
The exhibition is structured in three parts. The first shows how Galicia has managed to build a distinctive character through design.
The second presents experimental proposals that take centre stage in democratic openness and a series of works in which design is legitimised and assumes visual authority to impose itself as a professional discipline, renewing Galicia's image and designing innovative products. And the third and final section concludes with a speculative design exercise on Galicia's resources as a territory and its Atlantic condition, which leads us to understand the present as a place where pasts and futures meet.”
- David Barro, 2023.
Location: Galeria Municipal de Matosinhos
Event: Porto Design Biennale 2023
Promoter: CM Porto + CM Matosinhos
Curator: David Barro
Producer: esad–idea
Project assitant: Catarina Vieira
Graphic Design: Cristina Moralejo
Photography: Bruno Mesquita ( esad—idea )
https://www.portodesignbiennale.pt/pt/edicoes/2023
“ The contour of a river bank, the horizon line, the line of the ‘glass half full’ are inventions. The oceans are all interconnected, in a continuous mass, as are the rivers and the streams, and so on and so forth throughout the land. If there are no lines, how can we delimit territories? Or, in other words, if everything is connected, if everything moves constantly and appears to us with different degrees of invisibility, what will be its relevant geography? There are so many different waters: fresh and salt water; drinking water, irrigation and cleaning water; water courses that serve as a means of transport and a home for so many forms of life; or water that has devastating force. We are therefore taking a radical approach by choosing a single location — Cabedelo do Douro — to try to discern many of these issues and identify the multiple lines (or stains, or colours) that allow them to be represented and that are connected to so many other places and beings. ”
- Ivo Poças Martins, 2023.
Location: Museu do Porto - Gabinete Triplex
Event: Porto Design Biennale 2023
Promoter: CM Porto + CM Matosinhos
Curator: Ivo Poças Martins Davis Barro
Producer: esad–idea
Project assitant: Inês Pereira
Graphic design: Andrew Howard, André Cruz, Pedro Lobo
Photography: Helena Sá ( esad—idea )
https://www.portodesignbiennale.pt/pt/edicoes/2023
“ At a time when sneakers attain a global dimension as one of the icons of contemporary culture, Sneakers: Portuguese Brands from the Estado Novo to the Turn of the Millennium seeks to raise awareness of the legacy of the Portuguese sports footwear industry. Starting from a unique collection of over 500 models of sneakers, representative of a universe of 100 brands designed and manufactured in Portugal, this exhibition explores the brands’ cultural, social, political, and economic significance. A brief historical contextualization is proposed, as well as a detailed look at such brands as Sanjo and Cortebel, but above all this exhibition reveals an impressive archive of other brands characterized by small series, models for different sports activities, and their packaging.
Chronologically organized by themes, the exhibition proposes both a historical retrospective and a space for critical reflection, including how the memory of the national trainers can be rescued, understood and preserved, and how the productive resources we have access to, material and immaterial, can be better used and creatively enhanced. ”
- Pedro Carvalho de Almeida, 2023
Location: Casa do Design, Matosinhos
Promoter: CM Matosinhos
Curator: Pedro Carvalho de Almeida
Producer: esad–idea
Graphic Design: Susana Martins , Pedro Lobo ( esad—idea )
Photography: Bruno Mesquita e Fernando Miranda ( esad—idea )
https://casa-design.pt/pt
“ What is fashion culture in Portugal? How has Portugal dressed in the last 50 years? How have the concepts of national identity, heritage and identity been lived, taking into account the different political, economic and cultural contexts the country has gone through?
Barbara Coutinho’s curatorial proposal aims to reveal the multiple ways in which tangible and intangible heritage, techniques and knowledge, as well as concepts of place, territory, national identity, belonging and memory are reflected in the work of near 40 designers and as they affect the contemporary world.
The exhibitions seeks to debate the influence of cultural traditions and national collective identity in the fashion universe, allowing an analysis of the relationship between popular and erudite culture, cosmopolitanism and nationalism, urbanity and rural world, tradition and vision of the future of new generations.”
- Barbara Coutinho, 2022
Location: Casa do Design, Matosinhos
Promoter: CM Matosinhos + CM Lisboa + esad—idea + MUDE
Curator: Barbara Coutinho
Producer: esad–idea
Project assitant: Constança Cardoso
Graphic Design: Inês Nepomuceno, Susana Martins ( esad—idea )
Photography: Bruno Mesquita ( esad—idea )
https://casa-design.pt/pt
D - Coleção em Exposição (D - Collection on Display) starts by exhibiting nine of the fifteen monographies of Portuguese Designers published in the omonimous collection, edited by Imprensa National, conceived e designed by Jorge Silva / Silvadesigners.
R2 (Liza Defossez Ramalho, Artur Rebelo); Victor Palla; Fred Kradolfer; Luís Miguel Castro; João da Câmara Leme; Roberto Nobre; Carlos Guerreiro; Dorindo Carvalho; Vítor da Silva.
The exhibition project follows the intent of the narrative created by the curator José Bartolo, who started by “disassembling a collection in order to assemble an exhibition and explore the collection’s potencial to operate as an archive with which to build several historical interpretations and critical approaches to Portuguese design and its social and political context”.
- José Bartolo 2021
Location: Casa do Design, Matosinhos
Promoter: CM Matosinhos
Curator: José Bartolo
Producer: esad–idea
Graphic Design: Inês Nepomuceno, Susana Martins ( esad—idea )
Photography: Bruno Mesquita ( esad—idea )
https://casa-design.pt/pt
“The Museum of Vibrant Matter, asks us to pay attention and attune to our local biological, technical, and hybrid materialities as an act of care towards ourselves, other living things, our soils, water, and geology. Encourages us to adopt radical, yet humble, attitudes beyond anthropo-supremacy so we can collectively design preferable material futures that regenerate us, our communities, and our terrestrial/ aquatic/ marine habitats.
The exhibition draws on cultural memories and new material experiments to re-activate our sensorial knowledge and other knowledge about our local materials. Material memories and new experiments will be exhibited, demonstrating material practices and co-constructing a living Archive of Vibrant Matter with designers, local experts, and citizens.”
Location: Casa do Design, Matosinhos
Event: Porto Design Biennale 2021
Promoter: CM Porto + CM Matosinhos
Curator: Alastair Fuad-Luke
Producer: esad–idea
Photography: Renato Cruz Santos
https://www.portodesignbiennale.pt/pt/edicoes/2021
“ A exposição Tempos Modernos — Cerâmica Industrial Portuguesa Entre Guerras — Coleção AM-JMV, organizada pela Câmara Municipal de Matosinhos e pela esad—idea, Investigação em Design e Arte, e maioritariamente constituída por uma seleção de cerca de quinhentas peças pertencentes à coleção particular AM-JVM, procura evidenciar as relações entre a produção cerâmica portuguesa e o contexto internacional, no rescaldo das vanguardas artísticas do início do século XX, centrando-se no período entre as duas Grandes Guerras. Considerando uma larga amostra de manufaturas representativa do tecido industrial da época (Fábrica de Sacavém; Aleluia; Vista Alegre; Massarelos; Lusitânia; Sociedade de Porcelanas de Coimbra; entre outras) e objetos de várias tipologias (serviços de mesa; candeeiros; floreiras; caixas e figuras), a exposição trata-se de um sólido conjunto de peças de uso doméstico que apela à memória coletiva do país. ”
- Rita Gomes Ferrão, 2020.
Location: Casa do Design, Matosinhos
Promoter: CM Matosinhos
Curator: Rita Gomes Ferrão
Producer: esad–idea
Graphic Design: Inês Nepomuceno, Susana Martins ( esad—idea )
Photography: Fernando Miranda ( esad—idea )
https://casa-design.pt/pt
“ The history of Italian design is extremely relevant to the international design culture. At the end of the 19th century, the work of a group of maestros sought to interpret the changes in the epochs, thanks to a project that responded to the demands of a technological and manufacturing nature, and those of a new emerging class of consumers who desired objects that were not mere expressions of a function or of a productive necessity, but above all that were the expression of a new idea of beauty, of a new aesthetic that also brought out the actual value of objects.
The history of these objects intersects with the stories of men, young architects fascinated by the universe of objects, by new materials, in short, by new horizons of design; there are also stories of enlightened, educated businessmen, who were aware of the importance of design as a factor of differentiation and legitimation of objects. The objects displayed tell stories of technological inventions, production processes, socio-cultural changes, economic and political factors that intertwine in a single movement, in a single stream of a history that produced and continues to produce icons, silent presences that trace and accompany the life of several generations. The objects selected tell these stories in search of the reasons and conditions that today produce a new way of designing, producing, distributing and consuming.”
- Paolo Deganello, Maria Milano, 2019
Location: Palácio das Artes – Fundação da Juventude, Porto
Event: Porto Design Biennale 2019
Promoter: CM Porto + CM Matosinhos
Curator: Paolo Deganello, Maria Milano
Producer: esad–idea
Graphic Design: Another Collective
Photography: Ines D’Orey
https://www.portodesignbiennale.pt/pt/edicoes/2019
Part of the Territorio Italia programme that comprises the Italian presence in the Porto Design Biennale 2019, Frontiere — Contemporary Design Expressions is an opportunity to reflect on some of the most interesting expressions of contemporary and emerging design in the current Italian panorama.
Articulated in four main sections, interconnected and capable of browsing the territory through its numerous fragilities, the exhibition presents stories of designers, companies, schools and associations that, reacting to the stimuli of the post-millennium reality, are discovering new dimensions in approaching design. In this scenario, new ways of thinking, projecting and producing emerge, represented by a group of designers and companies exploring the creative universe historically present in the territory and proposing to mix it with new realities in communication, distribution, use and reuse typical of the current social system.
Keeking the title of the exhibition, the catalogue is the result of an extensive research developed by curators Maria Milano and Lucio Magri on the creative, entrepreneurial and social dynamics that currently shape the Italian territory and its reality, showing the best and most up-to-date objects in contemporary Italian design.
Location: Casa do Design, Matosinhos
Event: Porto Design Biennale 2019
Promoter: CM Porto + CM Matosinhos
Curator: Maria Milano, Lucio Magri
Producer: esad–idea
Graphic Design: Studio Degrau
Photography: Ines D’Orey
https://www.portodesignbiennale.pt/pt/edicoes/2019
During the week of May 1-5, 2023, ESAD held the Reusing Furniture workshop, coordinated by Italian architect and designer Paolo Deganello. The first-year Interior Design students carried out a highly relevant exercise in the context of the current economic and environmental crisis: Some objects at the end of their life cycle were repurposed and requalified with the aim of achieving maximum aesthetic and functional quality, using as few material resources as possible.
By restoring classic forms and incorporating contemporary elements, the students managed to transform what was apparently ordinary furniture into works of art capable of reflecting a harmonious fusion of functionality, aesthetics and environmental awareness. The exhibition showcases this work and promotes a new perspective on design, sustainability and the power of human creativity.
Location: Exploratório Porto Design Biennale
Event: Porto Design Biennale 2023
Promoter/Producer: Esad, Escola de Artes e Design
Curators : Maria Milano, Eleonora Fedi
Educators : P. Deganello, M.Milano, E.Fedi, J.Gomes
Students: 1st year of Interior Design Master Course
Exhibition designer, assitant: Beatrice Zambelli, Sara Carraretto
Photography: Helena Sá ( esad—idea )