RAW: Future primal technologies from the South

‘Mi paso ha retrocedido cuando el de ustedes avanza’
‘My tread has receded when yours moves forward’ ― Violeta Parra

What is the future but a present yet to be written?
New technologies flood the design world every day, mesmerising us with the vast possibilities they offer and forcing us designers to understand them as creative means. Most of those technologies affect how we manufacture our goods, but also, most of those new fabricating media come from well-developed countries; how to acknowledge local provenance for materials at the same time that embracing these mediums becomes then a challenge.

RAW is a revision of a sustainable future from our materiality. Ingenuity allows a more primal version of the original manufacturing technology, to explore new materialities from a lo-tech yet futuristic approach.

The exhibition is a fictional working factory. There is a glowing island, a pyramid-shaped laboratory, within a room setup referencing Alfredo Jaar and Ivan Navarro’s work. Six designers ranging from lighting, product, graphics, and textiles, speculate on the production process that transforms these future local materials into a practical object, graphic piece, or surface.

Text by Daniela Toledo

Exhibition proposal for Chilean room in the London Design Biennale 2016

Artists list: