Operae 2016. Designing the Future

The seventh edition of Operæ gathers public and experts around projects linked by a focus on materials as well as on processes and craft technique. The event suggests a landscape inhabited by objects carriers of new values – whether economic, social, productive or relational – that arise from the intersection between craft skills and digital knowledge, local practices and global needs, specialized competences and collective narratives.
The event offers the opportunity to discover new products, take note of the emerging phenomena, get in touch with the actors of the design process as well as to stop and think about those aspects that design industry touches. Thanks to a program of meetings with personalities from the world of design, economy and culture and a full calendar of workshops, Operæ involves professionals as well as fans and curious.
Over time Operæ has become an incubator of stories: it brings to the fore experimental, innovative and multidisciplinary approaches and allows designers to sell their products and visitors to buy objects that are unique or produced in limited series.
For the 2016 edition Operæ is enriched by the presence of Annalisa Rosso, independent design and architecture journalist, in the role of curator. She identified the theme “Designing the future” as the framework through which to read the present time and the key which to look at the exhibition.
This year Operæ takes place in the first week of November, from the 3rd to the 6th, to coincide with Artissima Art Fair in the frame of the most important Italian event dedicated to contemporary arts “Contemporary Art Torino”.

Our tomorrow depends on what we build today, there is no doubt about that. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, explained it categorically during the conference for the opening of IP EXPO Europe 2014 in London: “We have to remember that the future is something we build. Nothing will happen if we just wait”.
In the field of design, this formula acquires a very interesting meaning and accuracy. For a long time now, designing no longer means simply creating objects, cars, furniture. Contemporary design deals with a widen, complex system that concerns the various aspects of the lives of human beings, the phases of the design process and different disciplines. It aspires to create a global communication and debate, even referring to local resources and sometimes drawing from tradition, the artisanal one too, with production methods that are no longer just industrial.
Good designers know their horizons of action. While they work, they have to consider the repercussions of the project, its social implications and the context of use. But there is more. In an era where machines and biology are absolutely essential, design is an integral part of scientific and technological revolutions that mark our time. In this panorama of fast changes, sometimes difficult to assimilate, designers must be aware of their role and the great responsibility that comes with it: today’s research directly affects our future.
It is certain that designers have a key role in the fields of innovation, communication, sustainability. But it must be acknowledged that they have an equally important position with regard to education, ethics, health, social justice. All sectors are involved, whether they are material or immaterial. Contemporary design is no longer merely form and function. Wide and analytical competences, which are focused on human beings, must be registered also thanks to collaborations with experts in specific matters, such as biology, economics, philosophy. Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator at the Department of Architecture and Design and R&D Director at the Museum of Modern Art of New York, theorised that designers themselves are the best political and strategic consultants for governments because of their extensive interdisciplinary knowledge, their familiarity with real needs of people and their particular ability to synthesize.
Designing the future reflects on the consequences of design. The 2016 edition of the independent design festival Operae uses the present tense to talk about the skills and the courage that are necessary to design the future.

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