From 17 to 23 April 2023, BASE’s experimental laboratory We Will Design will be developed around the acronym of I.D.E.A. – Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility – featuring designers from all over the world, schools, universities and international institutions, using design to conjure up new tools, practices and experiences.
The aim of this year’s edition is to start a reflection around the concept of a democratic and inclusive design, able to include people of all ages, abilities, gender and culture.
Temporary Home casaBASE – BASE’s guesthouse – turns once again into a unique residence for five women designers hailing from France, Germany, England, the Netherlands and Greece. Each of these five rooms will offer up a vision of five cutting-edge scenarios, serving as both home and place of experimentation for the designers over the course of the week, a place from which to develop, display and chronicle their own projects in a public forum.
The British Council and Onassis Stegi are supporting the Greek artist Maria Varela, as part of the Circular Cultures programme.
The art installation Butterflies of the Beautiful by Maria Varela visualises gender equality data reports from UN Women handwoven into algorithmically generated butterflies. Maria Varela attempts to create butterflies following the protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story The Artist of the Beautiful (1844) questioning from a modern viewpoint the battle of aesthetics and practicality, the combination of art, science and technology in the creative process of universal femininity.
From the UK, designer and researcher Sanne Visser – supported by the British Council as part of the Circular Cultures programme – presents LOCALLY GROWN, a design research project exploring human hair as a material resource by working closely with hairdressers to rethink and reimagine the system of hair recycling. Through an interactive installation, it invites visitors to see and physically experience the opportunities human hair can bring to wider ecosystems, from live haircuts in a redesigned barber’s chair to co-design workshops envisioning new equitable futures using radical materials.