On the occasion of Singapore Design Week and Italian Design Day 2019, the Italian Embassy in Singapore promoted a series of activities focused on Radical Design, an Italian movement that completely changed the landscape of design in the sixties. On the surface, the movement’s imagery was playful and made many references to pop culture: sofas shaped like voluptuous crimson lips, tactile carpets that mimic dry riverbeds, and lounge chairs that resemble three-foot-tall blades of grass. These colorful works were actually very subversive and anti-establishment, as the artists were protesting consumerism, fascism, and inequality. A reflection on radical design is therefore very much related to contemporary times. It is relevant, now more than ever in this global political climate, to explore how the way radicals generate hyper-eccentric furniture and objects, as well as radical contemporary architecture can force a reflection on civil and political rights.

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The programme included:

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Wearable Chairs Performance

original performance designed by Gianni Pettena

restaged in collaboration with LASALLE College of the Arts, School of Dance and Theatre

choreographic direction by Susan Sentler

performed by Chua Pei Yun, Isabel Phua, Regine Phua, Vasantha Tan Zi Wen

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Franco Raggi’s talk titled From City to Object: Utopian vision and Radical attitude in design

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SuperDesign ​Documentary Screening

director: Francesca Molteni

script: Francesca Molteni and Maria Cristina Didero