Manuela Procopio, Academic Manager, moderated the round table ‘Inequalities. Design for a better life’, where designers Elena Salmistraro and Pepa Reverter reflected on the role of design as a tool for transformation
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IED Barcelona joins the celebration of Italian Design Day 2025
Date
19 February 2025
Once again, IED Barcelona has joined the celebration of Italian Design Day, with the help of its Academic Manager Manuela Procopio, who moderated one of its activities: the round table entitled ‘Inequalities: Design for a Better Life’.
The talk took place on 12 February at the Enric Miralles Foundation and featured two distinguished guests: Elena Salmistraro, a product designer, Italian artist based in Milan and ambassador of the Italian Design Day; and Pepa Reverter, a visual artist, designer and teacher from Barcelona. Together they analysed how design can contribute to reducing current inequalities, providing the example of two outstanding projects.
Elena Salmistraro spoke about ‘Axo’, a cloth doll born from a simple idea, linked to childhood: creating a playmate using scraps of cloth, just like our grandmothers did. Together with ‘Cappellini’ and the ‘Alice Cooperative’, a promoter of Ethically Made in Italy (the first Italian chain certified by the World Fair Trade Organization), textile waste has been transformed into something new, addressing issues such as sustainability, reuse, the value of craftsmanship and the role of design as a tool for social change.
Pepa Reverter presented ‘TotCor’, an artistic, collaborative and charitable project that was born with the desire to help people express what they feel beyond words, to transmit a good social climate and promote empathy. The main piece of this project is the Cor, a heart-shaped vase, designed to remind us of the good in this world. The heart, a metaphor for our inner being, is materialised in TotCor to form a visible part of our daily life, in which its mere presence will bring out the best in us.
The round table also served to address other topics, including how to maintain and enhance the transformative role of design in society, as well as to reflect on the integration of technology and AI in this area, including strategies to prevent design from becoming a factor of inequality.
During the meeting, an open dialogue was generated in which the public asked questions and reflected on the future of design as a tool for transformation.
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This year, the theme chosen for Italian Design Day “Inequalities. Design for a better life” was linked to the theme to be addressed at the next Universal Exhibition of the Milan Triennale “Inequalities. How to repair the fractures of humanity”. The Italian Design Day in the World 2025 thus sought to highlight the role of quality design in reducing and combating inequalities and their impacts on everyday life.
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Cover photo: Manuela Procopio, Academic Manager of IED Barcelona, centre, with Elena Salmistraro and Pepa Reverter. Right, Andrea Marchesi, Director of IED Barcelona.
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