Eco Social Designer, as he defines himself, has the special ability to bring beauty even from industrial waste. A highly topical issue in times of sustainability and circular economy. His first exhibition was at Superstudio 13, in 2012. Seats talking about a different way of thinking about the waste of our civilization.

Tell me about your choice to become an eco-social designer or a "waste designer" ahead of time.
It was 2008 and I was working as a permanent designer for a packaging company, but, after 5 years, I felt that the company reality was too tight and I needed to "speak with my voice". I was already very fascinated and intrigued by the plastic and glassy waste that resulted in the production process and I remember that I collected them to study and reinterpret them. Soon I realized that, in addition to making works with the waste materials that I found, I could draw on much more material by helping companies to recycle. Each of my creations gradually became a hand in ecology, to which I quickly joined the active participation of social associations...

In the postcovid-19 world nothing will be as before, it's said. And certainly myths and values that have so far been overwhelmed by ephemeral and often inconsistent characters and trends that occupy the covers of magazines and the pages of newspapers will return to the surface. A revolution that has just begun.

We need competence, commitment, quality against appearance, superficiality, improvisation, the supposed talents from Talents Show. We need people who know how to take responsibility for bringing the world to a saving, better horizon. Of new heroes that cloud false myths. To better know and appreciate doctors, scientists, researchers, engineers, anthropologists, chemists, physicists, architects, urban planners, computer scientists, artists who can take us out of the ford and give us back security...

Preparations are underway for the spaces of Superstudio to host virtual or virtualised events. This will in fact be the future of conventions, presentations and fashion shows to widen the online audience in the face of a reduction in physical attendance in the locations. Or to make the real event even more wow thanks to the support technology with increasingly performing Led screens. Like those of Wave&Co.

In these weeks of suspension of events, Superstudio has continued to make its spaces available for video and shooting.
Among the latest productions hosted, that of Wave&Co, an Italian sales, rental, installation and content creation company for ledwall, has brought to our spaces one of the latest innovations in the world of electroluminescence. Technology, undisputed protagonist of the new habits of these days, is experiencing a strong acceleration and even the world of LED screens for indoor and outdoor solutions is making progress. The new product presented by Wave&Co, against the background of the halls of  Superstudio, is the new series of modular LED screens for indoor solutions...

It is difficult to imagine today the events that until yesterday brought together a large number of people in a lively and vibrant atmosphere also made up of exchange, greetings, hugs, sharing, common experiences, whether for business for information or for pleasure. Events and fairs will have to change. Integration between real and virtual will become mandatory. And trust.

The new password is "social distancing".  But what we should aim for is physical distancing combined with social proximity. It is, this, a fundamental node above all for activities of not first necessity. Those, that is, to which people decide to take part in pursuing a personal pleasure, a desire for belonging and participation. Obviously digital supports us in part.  But we must develop "real-virtual" hybrid proposals that allow us to physically return to the non-functional but useful and necessary spaces to feel good. Those of culture, commerce and also trade fairs, which are made of desire to see, touch, understand, share...

Your ideas, your reflections are important and illuminating. We keep eyes open on innovation that touches fashion, art, design, photography, communication, technology, the environment, progress. We open the magazine to the collaboration of our readers for an extended panorama of the world of creativity and events told by "us", of which you, you, are part.

An infinite lockdown has blocked companies, projects, events, production, sociality, work, life itself. For long weeks only communication especially virtual  was opened, websites, social network, newspapers, blogs, posts, messenger, streams, twitter, zoom, meet, teams, skype, webinar, whatsup, youtube, tiktok, instagram, pinterest, and all those forms of human contact and information exchange that do not need physical presence...

Will it be a new Renaissance? This way Italy of design starts again: Borioli, Cappellini and Cibic protagonists of the webinar by Matrix4Design and Superstudio

Our lives are changing. We see it every day: because of the measures taken to face the COVID-19 emergency  we were forced to profoundly change the way we work, move, think. The space around us has taken on new dimensions, where technology has become more and more present and has helped us redefine roles, contacts and relationships.
However, this is not enough. Months in which we will be called to imagine the unthinkable and to do so with flexibility and creativity await us, breaking ten-year customs to develop an innovative idea of society, based on a different way of conceiving products and services.

Eclectic, curious, visionary, practical, generous, open mind, never banal, feminine in the best sense of the word. She loves the colors of the South of the world, travels, traditions as well as innovative and unexpected solutions. A  360° experience in the world of design, crowned by international successes and awards. Paola Navone is a "unicum" and a fountain of conversation. For her, ever since she was a child, design has always been "like an omelet: with mushrooms or zucchini, as long as it is good".

2000-2020, in these 20 years what has changed? And what will change in the last year that will take us to 2020?
I just think it’s changed that hopefully, there’s more freedom.

It’s already a good answer.
It’s not like you can analyze the changes, the real change now is that everything coexists and everything can live more and more. What will change? It will change that this degree of freedom will grow.

Do you think that this freedom is also expressed by the fact that design has gone to intercept a thousand other products, a thousand other needs, a thousand other expressions?
Let’s say that there is more freedom on the part of those who consume design, which is much less oblative than before, so it’s like in clothing...

Last year, at Superdesign Show, the Superstudio event for Design Week, I curated the immaterial but real sculptures exhibition  by Flavio Lucchini, a magical and unsettling experience created with Alvise Braga Illa's company Sense - immaterial Reality, founder of TXT e-solutions software company and Sense-immaterial Reality. An innovator able to cover new ground who moved among the first in bringing the Immaterial Reality where it could satisfy new functions. Three questions for him to find out what we can expect tomorrow.  

The boom of virtual experiences that put us in front of the coronavirus isolation has made even more current experimentations and applications of technologies that allow us to overcome the physicality to replace it with intangible presences as exciting as those experienced in first person, even if through a new dimension. All the more true and necessary when the work takes place in smart-working and choices and purchases do not allow to be on site, as it happens with fashion, art, design...

A live conversation to share knowledge and perspectives between Gisella Borioli, CEO Superstudio Gruop, and Giulio Cappellini, Art Director and Istituto Marangoni Brand Ambassador.

Instagram live on Thursday 30th April h 5.30 pm at IstitutoMarangoni_Milano Design | Superstudiogroup profiles.

In English.

In Milan everyone remembers that April 2000 where in an unknown via Tortona, in a disused factory, a surprise alternative and almost playful way of presenting the design complementary to what the Salone del Mobile did with its trade fair with an important commercial function arose. Thus begins the adventure of Gisella Borioli in design in the new Superstudio Più, with the complicity and the adhesion of her friend Giulio Cappellini, entrepreneur and open-minded talent-scout . Artribune wanted to make the point with an interview with the founder.

Twenty years have passed since the creation of Superstudio Più and the first design presentation, with Cappellini and a series of young designers who later became stars. What are the memories you are most attached to?

I remember with surprise when I called Giulio Cappellini, with whom I had previously collaborated for my Donna magazine, to see the portion of the delabré factory just bought by General Electric. It was just over a month before the start of the Salone del Mobile 2000 in which he thought to show the new products of Cappellini in a booth as usual...