I'm a designer, a maker and an artist of craft. During my BFA in Furniture Design at Rhode Island School of Design, I was lucky enough to explore and familiarize myself with a variety of materials, including wood, metal, textiles, and leather. Since, I have worked in furniture design studios in London and Rio de Janeiro and as a fabrication assistant for a sculpture artist in Brooklyn, New York. I am currently based in Barcelona where I am completing my masters' in design and material research at ELISAVA and the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia. Much of my artistic practice is based on the geometries and spatial qualities of language, alphabets and cultural symbology. I see the practice of making as a means of communication and an active expression of our values. I explore craft practices through material interaction and understanding. Recently, I have shifted my focus to local, bio-based, waste-based material exploration and research. I aim to incorporate regenerative practices, natural building techniques, and the principals of the circular economy into my design practice. Don't hesitate to contact me - I'm happy to answer any questions or discuss a possible collaboration.
WORKSHOPS, EXHIBITIONS & PUBLICATIONS
The Distributed Design platform provides a framework for designers, makers and creatives to innovate the field of design towards more sustainable, open, inclusive and collaborative practices. Each year they publish a book that brings together a collection of theories and principles, it is a dynamic exploration of design’s capacity to drive innovation, foster inclusivity, and navigate the complexities of our interconnected world. A profile of Julia's Bagaceira Project was featured in this edition.
View Publication View Article Images POBLENOU FÀBRICA / FABRICA
During my Research Residency at Fab Lab Barcelona, we curated, designed and built an exhibition at Ca L'alier that showed the productive character of the Poblenou--once known as Barcelona's Manchester--has been transformed during the decades and its existing potential to promote a more circular, inclusive and diverse economies. The exhibition portrayed the evolution of Poblenou’s tangible and intangible productive heritage through a set of photographic records, personal stories and objects connected with different scales of the territory will be presented. Our aim was to make the productive sector of the neighborhood visible through a local exhibition where manufacturers, artisans, residents and people connected with Poblenou can feel invited and recognized to share and contribute their knowledge and experiences. We organized a series of craft workshops, round table discussions, a walking tour and a walking tour of some the neighborhood's most iconic factories.
View Exhibition Photos View Blog Post APERITIVO SOLAR WITH SLOWLAB
In collaboration with SlowLab Barcelona, we organized an event at El Centro Mandala's Low Tech Life Festival to celebrate solar cooking practices. In preparation for the event we constructed a solar oven, a solar dryer, and bicycle-powered speakers to provide sun-themed tunes for the sunset snacking. The Low Tech Life Festival brings together people from different regions of Spain and France to share knowledge, tools and techniques around energy efficiency and regenerative living, cooking, agriculture, and architecture.
View Event Photos During this celebratory exhibition, we invited visitors to re-interpret our relationships with our ecological systems. We exhibited designed artifacts, bio-remediation experiments, symbiotic wearables, interactive art displays, and audiovisuals that push us to re-think our parasitic role in the Anthropocene. Through these works we aimed to guide thought and conversation towards how to bio-remediate our plastic planet, form symbiotic relationships with microorganisms, and live in balance with our natural systems. Visitors were encouraged to try on spirulina makeup, algae-based wearables, and enjoy the live music and spirulina cocktails. I exhibited a educational display on mycelium and bio-remediation. In collaboration with Marina Lermant, we displayed a prototype of a mycelium and algae based shoe and a variety of algae based plastic alternatives.
View Event Photos Our cultures, relationships, tools and rituals are in constant flux. They evolve based on our resources, climates, economies, industries, and rhythm of life. These crafts and customs bring us together and can help us to understand what is to come. We cannot imagine our futures without understanding our past. We invite viewers to join us as we speculate on how to observe, conserve, and preserve traditions from the past in order to give life to future rituals that allow us to serve-WITH others and safeguard and strengthen relationships. This collective exhibition seeks to generate consciousness about ancient habits that are still in force today, redefine our perceptions of preservation, and contemplate alternative future scenarios around food, crafts, and tools. I exhibited a piece titled Sewn to stay, Sewn to go as part of Crafting for the Anthropocene collection. This collection displays four designers' interpretations of how our tools will evolve under four different future scenarios related to resource scarcity, water pollution, air pollution, and rising sea levels.
View Exhibition Photos BIO-BASED MATERIAL AND NATURAL DYE WORKSHOP
Can we imagine a future without waste? Can we design, make and source our materials with circularity? During this hands-on workshop, we explored how food waste can be transformed into a resource, discussed the concept of a material lifecycle and got our hands dirty as we made bio-plastics and other bio composites using food waste from local industries in Poble Nou, Barcelona. During the workshop, we discuss the concept of the circular economy and the importance of local production and utilization of local waste streams. In collaboration with Marina Lermant, Catalina Rubio, Baru di Fabio, we demonstrated how to create water-resistant bioplastics using natural dyes, algae and natural oils and how to hand mold small objects using eggshells and algae.
View Workshop Photos In collaboration with Roberto Broce, we organized workshops about Mycelium for bio-remediation and fabrication. Bioremediation is the treatment of pollutants or waste by the use of microorganisms (such as bacteria) that break down undesirable substances. Myco-remediation describes fungi’s ability to bio-remediate. Most fungi like to feed cellulose based substrates and as they feed, they excrete enzymes that catalyze the breakdown the reaction of long polymer chains into monomers into their single elements. Many species have been discovered to remediate toxic substances such as crude oil, polyurethane, and polyethylene and other petroleum based plastics. Fungi, like Reishi, Turkey Tail, and Horse Hoove are known to grow fast and form a dense myco-rhizal network that can be used to make myco-composites and pure myco materials that are now being introduced into architectural, packaging, and apparel industries. During this workshop series we introduced the participants to the wonders of the fungi kingdom and essential myco-vocabulary. I developed two open source Myceliation card decks, of fungi bioremediators and mycelium design applications that we used as educational tools during the workshops. In addition, the sessions involved group activities to teach the participants how to set up their own myco-remediation experiments and how to mold and cast their own myco-materials.
View Workshop Photos NEW CONTEMPORARIES @ RISD MUSEUM
The new contemporaries exhibition showcases selected works from RISD’s graduating class of 2018. Works from 22 students were exhibited from June 2018 until October 2018 in the RISD Museum in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. The Character Chair and Written Rug were selected to be shown.
View Exhibition Photos RISD FURNITURE SENIOR EXHIBITION
This exhibition features works by the Furniture department’s 2018 graduating seniors that were created as a part of their final degree project. My Character Chair, Written Rug, Head Code sculpture, Head Code jewelry, and Tiled Turns were displayed.
View Exhibition Photos ICFF FURNITURE DESIGN EXHIBITION
"With projects from thirteen students including undergraduates and graduate students, and two projects from a collaborative course with the Department of Textiles, the work represented varies widely in approach and in physicality. This exhibition provides an exciting look at the issues and ideas young designers are engaged with today. Included are thoughtful variations on familiar typologies, conceptual experiments with form and materials, and new ideas about the roles useful objects can play. By definition, students are curious. This exhibition reflects a pedagogy that supports this curiosity from which inspiration, growth, and meaning can be developed." My Syllabowls were selected to part of this exhibition.
View Exhibition Photos ICFF FURNITURE DESIGN EXHIBITION
"The featured work in the 2017 ICFF RISD Student Exhibition was based on in-depth, multidisciplinary materials research, with Furniture Design students partnering with peers in Textiles to rethink the use of soft materials in furniture design. Rather than using conventional techniques to cover furniture with foam and textiles, in this work students emphasized the inherent qualities of the materials through methods based on weaving, knitting, knotting and crocheting." Anna Williams' and my collaboration, Nested Knits was displayed.
View Exhibition Photos "The featured work in the 2017 Salone di Mobile RISD Student Exhibition was based on in-depth, multidisciplinary materials research, with Furniture Design students partnering with peers in Textiles to rethink the use of soft materials in furniture design. Rather than using conventional techniques to cover furniture with foam and textiles, in this work students emphasized the inherent qualities of the materials through methods based on weaving, knitting, knotting and crocheting." Anna Williams' and my collaboration, Nested Knits was displayed.
View Exhibition Photos RISD TRIENNIAL FURNITURE DESIGN SHOW
"The Department of Furniture Design promotes a way of working that integrates thinking and making. All studios and most courses require the design and execution of resolved objects in real materials at full scale. As a result, there are a lot of things to look at, learn from and think about. This Triennial exhibition includes over 120 objects by over 80 students and alumni. The work of these students and alumni says more about the depth and breadth of our students' experience in Furniture Design than any statement might. The student works in this exhibition are the product of Sophomore, Junior, Senior and Grad studios and electives." The Kufic Coffee Table was selected to be shown in this exhibition.
View Exhibition Photos Volume XVII Issue I of the Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design's VISIONS magazine features the Wooden Dolls, a collaborative project that I worked on with Shaina Tabak, Makoto Kumasaka, and Santiago Peré.
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