Interview / CURRO CLARET
Design which gives hope
One of this year´s Bratislava Design Week guests is Curro Claret from Barcelona. An original creator, for whom interpersonal relationships and ecology are among the most important things, does not really make objects, but rather instructions for more creative and more fulfilling life. His project „La pieza“, which he will present here, is about connecting, recycling and returning into life (furniture, as well as people).
La pieza, source: curroclaret.com
Why have you chosen a profession of a designer?
One thing I like about design is the capacity to question and to propose other ways to shape our surroundings.I guess nobody can feel completely happy in this world, looking how unbalanced it goes.
How would you describe your work (approach) in its main features?
I feel it is a mixture of many different things, sometimes quite in contradiction.
You live in Barcelona. How does the city influence and inspire you as a human, and as a designer?
I also feel here there is quite a mixture of different things. There is for instance a street life with lots of things that happen in the street; I do particularly appreciate very much those ones done „spontaneously“ by anybody. Barcelona is also quite a dense city, with certain levels of „confrontation“, so we need to cope with that in a peaceful way. Somehow in relationto that it may be mentioned here the Catalan-Spanish thing, which unfortunately sometimes raises too muchtension. I also feel certain a „surreal“ thing going on, which I do enjoy very much.
Quite frequently you carry out actions, which can be identified as visual (action) art. What do these actionsmean to you, as a product designer?
I do enjoy the unclear differences between art and design. I believe art should be much more present in our everyday things.
Your activities are in many aspects similar to the practices of visual artists (for example the principle of participation, work with communities, an emphasis on the concept). What is your approach towards visual art?
I guess design and art share lots of approaches as you indicated. For some reason, it comes to my mind now what one architect said about teaching at a university of architecture, for him it was mainly about to teach them not to be afraid.
Please, present us your project „La pieza“.
It is a metal piece to help people to make some furniture reusing found materials. Besides, the project involvesmainly different groups of people in difficult life situations, so we have been testing how it could help them in their process to recover themselves. I do not know to what extent the project can help, but just the fact that I can do something in that field makes sense to me. Also, the aim of the project is to change how society/ we perceive „such people“.
What is the main role (mission) of a designer in the contemporary society?
I feel there may be many different roles. One of them could be to encouraging people. Another one – to give them hope. And, another one – to help them think and change the world to a different place – a more balanced one. It seems that „power“ is concentrated in the hands of a few people (such as big corporations) and at the same time you can see everyday how there are more projects trying to propose new mechanisms of power distribution.
How would you describe the contemporary Spanish design? What would you recommend us?
I feel that lots of things are happening on a very small scale that may be with not much visibility, but hopefullyproposing different ways of participating and understanding the world, with different relationships amongpeople and between people and the earth. So I would recommend paying attention particularly to certain smallthings. That sounds like a pretty vague answer… Sorry.
What makes you most happy these days?
To be with other people doing something together.
Lámpara Shoelaces, source: hicarquitectura.com.