Il Circle of Design presents the first edition of Earthrise – Design for a Living Planet, festival to be held at Torino, in the spaces of the Design Club in via S. Francesco Da Paola 17, from 8 to 11 June. With Earthrise, the Circle of Design intends to participate in the cultural change necessary to develop a new shared ecological awareness.
The first edition is dedicated to relationship between forests and society and involves figures from design, culture and science, during four days that aim to open one shared space for discussion and reflections with a multidisciplinary approach, for an open and stratified investigation that crosses the themes of production, urban greenery, design, biodiversity, adding anthropological, sociological, and artistic perspectives.
To curate the festival are George Vacchiano, professor at the University of Milan, researcher in forest management and planning and scientific disseminator, ed Elisabetta Donati de Conti, design curator and designer.
35 guests among scientists, designers, artists, academics, entrepreneurs, musicians, writers: Earthrise brings together different perspectives on the relationship between society and forest ecosystems, in a program of lectures, dialogues, pills, participatory activities, the installation TreeMate and the exhibition May contain traces of forest.
The program consists of four lecture in-depth studies that punctuate the days of the festival, presenting the research of some recognized researchers, professionals and disseminators of science, design criticism, anthropology and design in Italy.
It starts on Friday 9 June with George Vacchiano, that with The silent lesson of trees with a scientific and at the same time informative approach, it tells the connections that bind human beings and forests and the benefits that these bring to people's lives.
On Saturday 10 June, design criticism takes center stage Angela Rui that, with A Collective New Landscape, presents – following a very extensive survey of Italian under-35 designers, which merged into the great exhibition ITALY: A New Collective Landscape which can still be visited today at the ADI Design Museum in Milan – virtuous ways of designing and producing that focus on giving back to the world more than it takes.
Sunday June 11th Andrea Staid – anthropologist and writer – with Multi-naturalist design and anthropology he brings to Turin the reflections that flowed into his numerous books, including the last one Being Nature; finally, Rebediani Scaccabarozzi Landscapes with Garden dreamstell their research and practice of landscapers.
Three dialogues between design professionals, visual arts, entrepreneurs, journalists, activists and institutions: Designing sustainable production, with Marianna Fantoni (technical director of the Fantoni Spa furniture division), Ilaria Ferrero (General Manager of FerreroLegno) e Anna Pellizzari (sustainability and materials advisor, Materially), On / in forests, with Bezel11 (art Gallery), Poly Marchantia (art collective) e Zasha Colah (curator) e Green is a collective project. Dialogue on Turin, with Henry Bonante (director of PAV Parco Arte Vivente), George Brizio (Fridays for Future activist), Stefano Olivari (curator of Orti Generali), Alessandra Stefani (General Director of Forests at the Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies) e Francesco Tresso (Councilor for the care of the city, registry services and civil protection of the City of Turin) e Nicolas Lozito (journalist).
With the format of pills, the Circolo del Design invites specialist figures to open a glimpse of their field of research in thirty minutes, involving the public in vertical knowledge and practices concerning the relationship with forests.
During Earthrise take turns at the microphone, among others, Veronica Pecile (researcher) to tell the legal evolutions in the recognition of non-human rights, Michael Saini (forest researcher) who focuses on what we can do as individuals and consumers to participate as little as possible in the destruction of tropical forests, Titian Fratus, with his many years of experience as a journalist, writer, researcher, radio and television author, who brings his knowledge of dendrosophos, Davide ascoli (professor of fire prevention and mitigation) who talks about resistant and resilient landscapes and solutions that prevent disasters and at the same time support the local economy.
In addition, two paths of urban treks they guide walks to discover the woods, visible and invisible of the city; The Wild Look, workshop by Studio Fludd presented in versions for adults and children guides a reflection on the gaze as a tool that is never neutral and difficult to tame.
The festival also continues in the evening with the projection of the documentary Forest mindby Ursula Biemann (artist and writer), presented for the first time in Turin and a concert by Sara Berts (composer and sound artist).
A room of the Circolo del Design will be dedicated, during the days of the festival, to TreeMate,interactive installation created by the students of the Master of Arts in Interaction Design (MAInD) of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI) for the festival Earthrise.
With the festival opens the show May contain traces of forest, curated by Elisabetta Donati de Conti and Giorgio Vacchiano, in which the story of scientific research in the forestry field intertwines with that of experimentation, planning and production in the field of design, offering a glimpse of the dense, capillary and pervasive system of relationships linking human civilizations to forest ecosystems.
The exhibition is divided into different types of materials, ranging from the measurement tools typical of the profession of forest researcher, to material samples of various kinds, passing through examples of research that come from industrial as well as experimental production, up to works that they narrate the relationship with forests in a poetic and speculative way, through photographs, videos and soundscapes.
On display are the works of: CARA DAVIDE, Anda Lupaşcu, Madeleine Oltra, Karolina Metrak, Tamara Orjola, Leonardo Perina, Laura Pugno, Angelo Renna and Oleksandr Nenenko, Alessandro Ruzzier, Basse Stittgen, Studio Fludd, Studio Sarmite.
The exhibition will be open from 8 June to 15 December 2023.
“With Earthrise - comments Sara Fortunati, Director of the Design Club - the Circolo del Design opens a new chapter in his research. Lagging behind the times with which the climate emergency leads us to come to terms with individual and collective responsibilities, the annual festival becomes a cornerstone of our cultural commitment to deepen the themes, encourage transdisciplinary comparison and share positive practices and experiences.
The choice of a double curatorship of the project, which supports a design curator, Elisabetta Donati de Conti, and a researcher and science communicator, Giorgio Vacchiano, immediately expresses the need to connect knowledge that is sometimes distant in a comparison that in the festival extends to another 33 speakers from the different worlds of culture, science and design.”
“Forests don't need us, but we need them to survive. Our ties with the forest are strong even if often invisible: from the air we breathe to the climate of our days, from the water we drink to household objects... up to well-being, memory, and safety from hydrogeological instability. The exhibition leads the visitor to discover our relationship with the forest: a relationship that we can choose and that connects us deeply, through trees as great connectors, to other human beings” – George Vacchiano, editor of Earthrise
“Design practices try to interpret systems and production chains with an eye that increasingly includes the impact that the extraction and use of materials have on ecosystems. Both industries and emerging designers are therefore experimenting with new approaches that can rethink production scenarios, but also and above all trigger languages and codes capable of renewing awareness of the origin and transformative processes of the objects that surround us"- Elisabetta Donati de Conti, curator of Earthrise
The complete programme, in Italian and English, is available on the website earthrise.it.
Earthrise 23 – Design for a Living Planet is a project of the Circolo del Design, realized with the patronage of the City of Turin, the contribution of the Piedmont Region, the support of the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation and the CRT Foundation, the sponsor FerreroLegno and the technical sponsor Fantoni.
