The Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) and Motto Books is pleased to announce the release of Faraway, So Close. The book accompanies the exhibition of the same name for the 25th Biennial of Design (BIO 25), curated by Angela Rui and Maja Vardjan. BIO 25 brings together over 70 designers from all over the world, and is currently in full swing. The rich array of vibrant biennial events will run until November 19, 2017.
Faraway, So Close presents seven investigations through the concept of time—time as a key with which to identify new patterns connecting design with the phenomenological world, and the myriad consequences of such an interrelation.
Acting in various dispersed territories across Slovenia, Faraway, So Close seeks out “low-intensity” places in which to test the possibility of changing our notions of economic progress. The exhibition focuses on certain fundamental aspirations like stability, community and a better future. Design is—or at least can be—a vehicle for exploring basic new metaphors. It is a dialogic procedure. This break from the strictly disciplinary approach of design creates space for an expansive investigation of various interdisciplinary intersections and engagement resulting in a markedly different production of knowledge.
The book, published by MAO and Motto Books, works to explore ways of changing the goals of design culture. By presenting the seven investigative episodes developed within BIO 25 and their interchange with both local archives and broader paradigms, the project aims to turn away from the urgent need to solve problems, and instead open up new frontiers for observation and experimentation. It seeks to consider our inhabited and habitable world for what it is and what it is becoming, and not simply what we think it should, ideally, be.
Edited by Angela Rui, Maja Vardjan and Cvetka Požar, with contributions by Nabil Ahmed, Andrea Branzi, Tony Côme, Brendan Cormier, matali crasset, Domitilla Dardi, Odo Fioravanti, Didier Fiúza Faustino, Studio Formafantasma, Thomas Geisler, Rory Hyde, Alexandra Midal, mischer’traxler studio, Dimitrij Mlekuž, Point Supreme Architects, Emanuele Quinz, Renata Salecl, Anna-Sophie Springer, Studio Folder, James Westcott, Elia Zenghelis and many others, as well as an extensive photo documentary essay of the episodes by Delfino Sisto Legnani and Marco Cappelletti.
The book, which will first be presented at The NY Art Book Fair September 22–24, 2017 in New York, is available at the MAO Museum Shop, at Motto stores internationally, including Berlin, Wiels, Bergen, Charlottenborg, and Cambridge, and online at Motto Books.
