MANZINI
EZIO
Ezio Manzini’s work centers on design for social innovation as a driving force for a just and ecological transition. From this perspective, he founded DESIS: an international network of design schools engaged in these issues.
He currently serves as President of the DESIS Network and is Honorary Professor at the Politecnico di Milano. Over the past decade, he has held visiting professorships at several international institutions, including Elisava (Barcelona), Tongji University (Shanghai), Jiangnan University (Wuxi), University of the Arts London, Cape Peninsula University of Technology (Cape Town), and Parsons School of Design (New York City).
His recent publications include: “Design, When Everybody Designs. An Introduction to Design for Social Innovation” (MIT Press, 2015); Politiche del quotidiano (Edizioni di Comunità, 2018) and its English edition Politics of the Everyday (Bloomsbury, 2019); Abitare la prossimità (Egea, 2021) and its English edition Livable Proximity (Egea, 2022); Plug-ins: Design for City Making in Barcelona with Albert Fuster and Roger Paez (Elisava and Actar Publishers, 2023); and Fare Assieme, Una nuova generazione di servizi pubblici collaborativi with Michele D'Alena (Egea, 2024).
In 2024, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Design Research Society.
19 SEP @ 10:00
Sailing Against the Wind: Scenarios of Collaboration, Proximity, and Care in an Era of War, Walls, and Hate
KEYNOTE 2
Twenty years of transformative social innovation have shown us that it is possible to sail upwind. That is, that it is possible to think, to make things happen, to build parts of the world in defiance of dominant currents. Today, however, the headwinds are stronger than ever. Confronting the forces of war, border walls, and cultures of hate is not only more difficult but also more urgent.
The forms of social innovation under discussion emerged globally some twenty years ago. Even amid prevailing individualism and consumerism, groups of people chose to engage differently with everyday life by collaborating, cultivating proximity, and caring for one another and the environment. In the years since, these initially scattered efforts have grown into a constellation of meaningful practices. This presentation will examine these developments on two levels: first, in terms of the ideas and social practices they have generated; and second, in terms of their positioning within broader societal dynamics.