RESIDENCY #1
ENCODED SYMBOLS

TURIN, ITALY
DUPARC CONTEMPORARY SUITES
2019

A year-long project started with a residency in Turin, Italy, and culminated in the production of a collection of works and the publication of a monograph book on each designer.

ENCODED SYMBOLS

“First, to feel the symbols, to feel that the symbols have life and soul – that the symbols are like us.”
Fernando Pessoa

The symbols that surround us are comparable to “encoded manifestations”. In the “forests of symbols” through which man passes, which “look at him with fond familiar eyes” – as Baudelaire writes – every signal from that world, filtered by our subjective sensibility and consciousness, has a potential for interpretation. The ritual association of signified and signifier coincides with an everyday practice, often enacted in an instinctive way and an automatic mode that obeys ancestral promptings, partially unjustifiable through logical-rational reasoning.

Material goods, in a more incisive way than in the past, are now expected to embody values, to become vectors of meaning, tools useful and necessary for the production of meaning, which is “extracted” from the ordinary sphere of everyday life to project it from the present into the immediate future.

This character that grants the object the status of a “symbol” also represents its dominant or prevalent functional aspect. As if to say: in a completely saturated global context of goods, users seek forms of privileged dialogue with certain objects, with which they often establish a relationship of recognition, or of empathy – and in any case of affection – that represents a specific function of the object itself, per se. This category of goods can be acknowledged as having not only an intense expressive impact, but also an incisive evocative role, factors that are necessary for their designation as symbolic objects in their own right or as devices that are useful – even necessary – to decipher specific categories of symbolic codes.

Relying on design activities it is possible to produce – or to activate – “instruments” for the encoding of the messages embodied in symbols, necessary to reveal their meaning in a total or partial way. Thinking about this category of “sensitive artifacts,” these “utensils of interpretation” through which we gain access to thresholds of unprecedented awareness and emotion, also leads to the formulation of original narrative theses, valid for the exploration of the “forest of symbols” that is a part – in a pervasive way, with many forms – of the life of every individual.

The original works created following the stimuli and inspirations gathered during the residency in Turin are produced thanks to the involvement and collaboration of a well-known gallery, known in the international design scene.
The works of Marcin Rusak and Roberto Sironi are realized through a single collaboration, through a synergy between IN Residence and Carwan Gallery Athens.

The exhibition “Protoplasting Nature: Encoded Symbols” takes place in the wonderful spaces of the prestigious Carwan Gallery in Athens and displays seven lighting fixtures, unique pieces conceived and designed by Marcin Rusak. The show is taking place at the gallery in Athens from January 21st until March 27th 2021.

The “Ruins: Encoded Symbols” collection designed by Roberto Sironi is the protagonist of a preview by invitation at the Fonderia Artistica Battaglia in Milan; the solo exhibition is taking place at the gallery in Athens from 4th June 2021 until 17th July.

Published by NERO Editions, the monographic books are dedicated to the work of Marcin Rusak and Roberto Sironi, as part of a series of monographs on the thought and work of young contemporary designers.
Illustrated by a rich photographic series, the book presents the results of Rusak’s and Sironi’s creative thought through some selected projects; written by Barbara Brondi & Marco Rainò and designed by BRH+, the volume recounts the experience of the first IN Residence Design Residency inspired by the theme.