White Paper by - English Issue 24

Simone de Beauvoir once said: “Dedicate yourself to people, groups, or causes. Immerse yourself in social, political, intellectual, or artistic work. Seek passions strong enough to keep you from closing in on yourself. Appreciate others and live an active life filled with meaningful projects.” We dedicate ourselves to making a magazine — it’s a cause and a meaningful project. Making a magazine is like a fantasy. But that doesn’t mean it comes without effort: there’s stress, missed deadlines, last-minute cancellations, missing materials. Still, every ounce of worry, every sleepless night, every burst of nervous energy is worth it — because three months later, we get to hold a finished issue in our hands. And that joy is enough to start the next one the very next day. This issue had…

Mostly perceived as a Black & White decorative element, Fornasetti is actually quite colourful. The purity of the lines, the materials, the artisan quality of the objects (all made in Italy) put the brand on top of the list of Minimalism, while the richness of the patterns, the cultivated classical references, the audacious mix of subjects and the almost endless development of some motives – the face of Lina Cavalieri being the most flagrant example and now known as “Tema e Variazioni”- lead to a glorified Maximalism. Piero Fornasetti started his company in the 1940’s. His intention was a generous one: to provide daily use objects, enriched with decorative patterns that would bring art in all houses. In the 1930’s he had a printing workshop and produced books with the…

Your work is particularly recognized for the wise balance between tradition and innovation. How do you balance these two sides of the work? I truly believe that as designers, we are not inventing much but rather giving a new reading to our surroundings. Yes, we innovate by the way we address what matters to us, assuming it all comes from our past experiences and cultural background. In that sense, my work is a mix of tradition and innovation as it relates to something we somehow know or re-discover is rephrased with technical or technological capacities anchored in current possibilities. How important are both drawing and hands-on prototyping in your process? Do you have preferences between the two? I really enjoy the drawing part that comes after the first brainstorming phase…

She speaks about glass as one would of a recent love—using words full of emotion, tension, and gratitude: “Glass is strong and fragile by nature, solid and fluid at the same time. This duality moves me deeply. Its relationship with light, its transparency, and the sense of depth it creates resonate with the emotions I seek to express. Working with glass is like making the invisible visible. And the unpredictability of each production process adds both challenge and wonder.” She speaks like someone who has learned a great deal alongside someone else, whose company is sought tirelessly, like that of a great friend, a great love… And the one speaking of glass and working with this fascinating material is Sema Topaloğlu, a Turkish architect and interior designer who lives and…

A theater stage, display cases, natural and artificial landscapes, sheep, screens, trees, publications… Of course, there are also furniture pieces and interiors on FormaFantasma’s Instagram, the design studio founded in 2009 by Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin, but they’re not front and center—and certainly not the majority. Just one glance is enough to sense the range of projects FormaFantasma takes on, and the surprising outcomes that result from their holistic, multidisciplinary approach. According to the manifesto on their website, their work weaves together “the ecological, historical, political and social forces shaping the discipline of design today. Whether designing for a client or developing self–initiated projects, the studio applies the same rigorous attention to context, processes and details.” They explore this ethos deeply in the following interview, which is framed by…

There was never just one version of things—least of all in the case of Agnès Varda herself. Photographer, filmmaker, visual artist, chronicler of a time, a city, and a neighborhood… That was Agnès Varda, and that’s how she portrayed herself in the book Varda by Agnès, titled after her 2019 documentary and published by La Martinière in 2023: “I enjoy going here and there. I enjoy saying one thing and its opposite. I feel less trapped that way, because I do not choose just one version of life.” Any exhibition about her, then, can’t be just one thing either. It must be many. It must leave space for imagination, stir emotions, highlight what usually goes unnoticed, and surprise. It must do all this if it’s to resemble the creator it…