Mariangela Beccoi
Mariangela Beccoi is a designer and researcher whose work explores the intersection of design, politics, and matter/socio-environmental justice. Her practice, encompassing theoretical reflections, installations, and performative gestures, addresses socio-political issues related to environmental justice, colonial dispossession, and extractivism. By integrating perspectives from the arts and humanities, her artistic endeavours seeks to challenge hegemonic epistemologies and promote alternative ways of understanding the material environment. Current work focuses on the politics of Being in the Breathable, investigating the commodification of air and the intertwined relationships between air, design, climate control technologies, and power structures.
Based in Berlin (DE), she is a PhD candidate in Artistic Research at the University of the Arts Bremen (DE). She holds a BA in Product Design from the University of Ferrara (IT) and an MA in Social Design from the Design Academy Eindhoven (NL).
*1992, Italy.
EDUCATION
2016-2018 • Master of Arts (MA), Social Design - Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE), NL
2013-2014 • Erasmus Year. Design Department - École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Nancy (ENSA), FR
2012-2015 • Bachelor (BA). Industrial Design, Università degli studi di Ferrara (UNIFE), IT
TEXTS
One NO Leads To a Thousand More. Futuress, 29 Apr. 2022, https://futuress.org/stories/one-no-leads-to-a-thousand-more/ Mariangela Beccoi.
Mariangela Beccoi, Lukas Feireiss. Catalogue of Mycological Curiosities, in Shelter Cookbook, Leopold Banchini, Lukas Feireiss (eds.), (Leipzig: Spector Books, 2021)
Everyday Resilience. On pots, tear gas and creativity, in Social matters, Social Design. For good or bad, all design is social. Jan Boelen, Michael Kaether (eds.), (Amsterdam: Valiz, 2020)
EXHIBITIONS
2019 • Studiolo Berlin. What Goes Around Comes Around, Berlin, DE
2018 • De Campina, ’G18’ DAE Graduation Show, Eindhoven, NL
2017 • Wall Street Eindhoven, The Cleaning Cube, Eindhoven, NL
2017 • LUMA Foundation, Colour Geography, Arles, FR
2016 • Onomatopee, Charact(o)rs, Eindhoven, NL
WORK EXPERIENCES
2023 — Hospitality facilitator. Spore Initiative, Berlin, DE
2019 — Designer and researcher. Eugenia Pinna, Nule, IT
2022 • Graphic designer and content editor. Aedes Arkitekturforum, Berlin, DE
2019-2021 • Curatorial assistent and scientific employee. Living the City. Von Städten, Menschen und Geschichten, Berlin, DE
2019-2021 • Curatorial assistent. Studio Lukas Feireiss, Berlin, DE
2020 • Project coordinator Masters Introduction Week. Design Academy Eindhoven, Eindhoven, NL
2020 • Researcher. There are Walls that Want to Prowl, 17. Architecture Biennale, Venice, IT
2020 • Workshop organiser. Istituto Europeo di Design Factory, Rome, IT
2019 • Curatorial Assistant. Studiolo Berlin. Curatorial Space for Contemporary Creativity, Berlin, DE
2018
Mixed-media installation (objects, video, text, performance)
From molotov cocktails made out of preserved pickles and tomatoes during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to the pots and pans used as instruments to express dissent during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile, there is a long tradition of mundane objects that are altered, adapted, or just strategically reinterpreted to challenge institutional frameworks. Even if the demonstrations have different purposes, cultural or national contexts, the common thread is how an emergency brings out unexpected ways of looking at materials to create objects of resistance. Lexicon of Everyday Exception is an open catalogue that displays an alternative reading of ordinary objects to emphasise the importance of keeping freedom of expression alive. This conversation piece explores the logic of creativity by looking at how simple alternatives can be formulated and new material languages developed through acts of resistance.
2020
Text in Social Matter, Social Design. For good or bad, all design is social, eds. Jan Boelen and Michael Kaether (Amsterdam: Valiz, 2020)
The essay Everyday Resilience. On pots, tear gas and creativity confronts the hyper designed objects used for crowd control, such as water cannons or tear gas, with the simple impromptu designs used by protestors. The chapter illustrates how these simple objects, be they pots, pans, graffiti on currency or umbrellas, are brought to life and given dignity as creative solutions in moment of social unrest. It provides the reader with a look at protest culture through its materials and doing so raises questions about design’s culpability in supporting oppressive regimes. Mariangela animates a world of objects that are neglected or under-appreciated, making them visible but also demonstrating the rich composition of social and material interactions formed from everyday objects, civil unrest, and creative problem solving.
2018
Performance
In her research Lexicon of Everyday Exception, Mariangela Beccoi explores objects of protest and reveals a disconcerting asymmetry between the hyper designed objects of crowd control and the simple improvised objects of resistance. Her inquiry leads to an unsettling reflection: designed objects are predominantly positioned on the side of the oppressor. Where, one could ask, are the designers to support the cause of protesters— holding power to account? Does design as a practice favour certain social classes, ideologies and power relations, furthering their causes at the cost of others? Without a critical socio-political reflection on the relationship between design, designer and the context, design is bound to remain in the anaemic albeit comfortable embrace of the predominant ideology. Is teargas a design problem? Yes, if designers are dedicated to social transformation. The western tradition of design has been serving up myths of the status quo for nearly two centuries. While critical and radical design movements have existed, often side-lined, design has played an important role in preserving and disseminating the logic of capitalism. Much of what we accept as design was forged by the furnace of free-market capitalism in the kilns and workhouses of the 19th century. Design was a crucial fixture in industrialisation and viceversa; it was pivotal in a scissor-like manner of streamlining production processes to create new products quicker and more efficiently, while simultaneously driving up the demand for these products. In other words, capitalism relies on design to both improve the production of goods and to insure their eventual consumption.
Michael Kaethler, Critical reflections on Social Design in ‘Questioning Design’, DAE, 2018
2016
Mixed-media installation (object, video, performance)
In a dystopian near-future where every consumer good seems destined to become a smart object, even a knife—one of the simplest and most straightforward tools—can be transformed into a complex machine. This creates an unambiguous relationship between user and device, where the space for choice is limited by the system in which the technology is embedded. Learning Thing emerges with all the characteristics of a smart object but starts as a tabula rasa. Only through the user's teaching can its potential be revealed. If educated like a knife, it will question itself and the training it receives, forcing the user to confront the paradox of being constrained by their own teachings.