The Design Workshops is a project, part of the Contemporary Workshops, the Festival curated by Giuseppe Marsala, which presents four exhibitions on the experiments of young Sicilian designers, curated by Viviana Trapani. Resulting from educational activities and research conducted by the Industrial Design school of Palermo, the exhibitions will provide an opportunity to meet and reflect on the design planning, which expresses forms of creativity and innovation aimed at promoting concrete development processes, while simultaneously interpreting territorial qualities and identities. The four sections hosted in the “workshops” of the Cantieri will propose different themes and design approaches.
For example, the investigation into the sensory aspects of design, related to hearing and sound perception, in close relation to the tactile and formal perception of objects. The exhibition Design and Sound, curated by Domenico Argento and divided into two sections, sound objects and the sound of objects, offers a new perspective on design through interaction with an “immaterial” matter like sound.
Responsible packaging for the Sicilian agri-food sector is the focus of the Ri.Pack design exhibition, curated by Anna Catania.
Developed in collaboration with Tecnobox, Scia Imballaggi, Consorzio Libera Terra Mediterraneo, and Comieco, the projects aimed to design sustainable and reusable packaging in cellulosic materials, to be used in the agri-food sector, especially for the transportation of products during trade events such as Expo 2015.
Another section is represented by the exhibition Letters, Alphabets, Books, curated by Cinzia Ferrara, which reconstructs through the display of various graphic artifacts (photos, characters, alphabets, books) a journey into the world of letters, observed from new angles and analyzed as forms, contents of meanings, modular elements.
Letters that from two-dimensional elements also become three-dimensional objects, compose alphabets, construct books. The design experiences arise from the use of analog and digital tools and describe a process that moves from meaning to form, from module to system, from element to reference context, from concept to book design.
New domestic place, an exhibition curated by Benedetto Inzerillo, gathers prototypes of objects through which students try to build an informal and welcoming space, playful and thoughtful at the same time, experimenting with new possible declinations of the contemporary home; a now rooted environmental awareness guides the choice towards materials and construction processes that make objects light, economical, easily disassemblable, without however giving up on reproducing that friendly and poetic character that is the hallmark of the best Italian design. The reuse of materials and components is an opportunity for constructive intelligence and material expressiveness.
