jorge mañes rubio: useless at foster care 2012

image by seethisway

the future of design probably is not in the hands of companies and manufacturers but is a responsibility for the designers to come up with new scenarios where design can be significant again, and therefore have a meaning in our lives.

trying to tackle this saturation of products and events around the salone del mobile, a new formula was developed by curators susanna legrenzi, marco petroni and stefano mirti, who decided to create foster care 2012. this initiative took five young studios into private houses along the city of milano, being adopted by their owners. the idea was simple: one night, one designer, one event. no posters, no flyers, no propaganda, only friends and people who were really interested in joining an event where the work exhibited together with a nice drink and a pleasant atmosphere could initiate conversations and therefore move new directions and ideas.

in other words, an authentic experience you could feel lucky to participate and be involved with.

designer jorge mañes rubio was present in this project on wednesday night, at nicola zanardi’s apartment, in the heart of ventura lambrate district. a beautiful house where a new installation featuring the ‘useless’ lamps was conceived. an indoor garden of ice and light that slowly disappeared during the event, challenging the idea of design without a tangible reason to exist. what happens when an object’s disappearance becomes something much more valuable than its own presence? can the absence become the primary function of a product? in this case, the work and its extreme fragility became almost a pretext to bring people together, and think about the impermanence of design nowadays and its more immediate future… do we really need more and more products every year? can we build up diverse situations and scenarios where design can finally play a relevant role again? what if the future of product design is none but to utterly disappear?

image by seethisway

image by seethisway

image by seethisway

image by seethisway

image by seethisway

image by seethisway

jorge mañes rubio portrait image by seethisway

jorge mañes rubio portrait image by seethisway

www.seethisway.com

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions’  feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here