DECT TALKS | DIMITRI REIST
The music is the making of the music e The answer to the crisis, is the crisis sono rispettivamente la presentazione della ricerca sviluppata nel 2023 e la descrizione del progetto e della ricerca sviluppato a Palermo nel mese di novembre 2024 da Dimitri Reist, designer multidisciplinare e ricercatore svizzero che, dopo avere ricevuto una borsa di ricerca da Culture Moves Europe Individual Mobility Action, Call for Individual Mobility, ha sviluppato il suo progetto di ricerca in Sicilia. Il Cdlm in Design, Sostenibilità, Cultura Digitale per il Territorio essendo partner del progetto ha accompagnato Reist nello sviluppo del suo progetto e lo ha coinvolto nelle attività di ricerca all'interno dei corsi.
Scrive Dimitri Reist: "My research practice is centered around learning various understandings of visual knowledge, considering the socio- political conditions each of us are living in. Design is never neutral. The visual languages we create collectively impacts how we understand the world. The inequity we witness today is also the result of the promotion of the so-called “neutral” and “objective” mode of visual knowledge production. In 2021 I began this research by reaching out to peers2 to discuss the conditions in which we create work, and how these circumstances shape our daily practice, our methodologies, our ideas, and how in the end these are materialized in our visual language. I want to pivot away from an objective idea of design to a more sustainable one. One that takes the socio-political responsibility we carry as graphic designers seriously. In June 2023 the project was awarded with the Swiss Design Award in Basel where I presented a current state of the research in form of a audio and video installation. The dis- played film performs the complex, multilayered and personal outcome of the collective togetherness my peers and I practiced over the last months.3 You can find the video here.
In Palermo (thanks to the Grant of “Europe Moves Culture”) I will work on a new project and second chapter of my research: “The Answer to the Crisis is the Crisis”.4 During my 5 week stay I will be supported by Cinzia Ferrara and Elia Maniscalco from the UniversitaÌ€ degli Studi di Palermo, out of which a hopefully fruitful collaboration will evolve.
In the projects new chapter, I am interested in ecologies with strong cultural-historical visibility. Therefore I see Palermo (and Sicily in general) through its historical past as a important place.
How does it feel to live in a place of historical coexistence, that has been shaped by many different influences?
How does history, which lies long in the past and yet is still very much present, rub off on today’s everyday life?
What past do we actually see? And which has been erased?
This longer stay gives me a chance to develop deeper, more intensive insights into how these developments are materialized. By meeting local designers and make explorations of the city and its surroundings. I want to put the cultural-historical conditions of Palermo in relation with two other pillars: Climate Change and Migration Politics. The combination of these three pillars builds the contextual framework I want to place my research in".