Prada Frames: Materials in Flux
Prada, 2023
Prada Frames is a multidisciplinary symposium that investigates the complex relationship between the natural environment and design. Conceived as a platform for collective reflection, it brings together innovative perspectives and contributes to the development of a forward-thinking body of knowledge. Its approach is both scientific and educational, combining research with accessible, critical discourse. Reflecting the growing relevance of environmental studies across disciplines, Prada Frames convenes a diverse range of contributors, including scientists, architects, designers, artists, activists, anthropologists, and legal experts.
The second edition, titled Materials in Flux, builds on the research of Tim Ingold, who understands materials as interconnected and continuously transforming entities, and focuses on the dynamics of waste infrastructures, value systems, and the relationship between materials and ecosystems.
Held from March 20 to 22, 2023, at the Teatro Filodrammatici in Milan, the symposium unfolds through two daily sessions featuring lectures, conversations, and debates.
All sessions are available on prada.com.
Held from March 20 to 22, 2023, at the Teatro Filodrammatici in Milan, the symposium unfolds through two daily sessions featuring lectures, conversations, and debates.
All sessions are available on prada.com.
The Teatro Filodrammatici, one of the city’s oldest theatres, provides a historically significant setting. Redesigned in the late 1960s by Luigi Caccia Dominioni, the building features an entrance staircase and mosaic floors created with sculptor Francesco Somaini. In keeping with the intention to prioritize content, the installation is deliberately minimal. Formafantasma developed a subtle set-up across the foyer, bar, and stage using a light blue carpet and a selection of furniture and lamps designed by Caccia Dominioni for Azucena, the company he founded in 1947 with Ignazio Gardella and Corrado Corradi Dell’Acqua.
The symposium explores material culture through an interdisciplinary perspective, presenting materials as dynamic and evolving entities shaped by ecological, social, and political forces. It frames waste as a process of continuous transformation, examines the infrastructures and systems that regulate global material flows, and investigates the relationships between accumulation, reuse, and value. Design is addressed as a tool for rethinking production and consumption, highlighting practices rooted in sustainability, repair, and collective responsibility.
The program also considers governance, focusing on electronic waste, circular economies, and the broader forces shaping material systems. Sensory, scientific, and speculative approaches—from archaeology to environmental research—offer further ways of understanding material cycles. The symposium ultimately proposes a shift in perspective, envisioning materials as part of interconnected systems in which human and non-human processes coexist.
Contributions by:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 1
- Tim Ingold, Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology, University of Aberdeen
- Anna Anguissola, Associate Professor of Classical Archaeology, University of Pisa
- Eduardo Kohn, Professor of Anthropology, McGill University
- Hans Ulrich Obrist, Curator, Critic and Artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries
- Justin McGuirk, Writer, Chief Curator, Design Museum and Director of Future Observatory
- Patrick O'Hare, Senior Researcher, Department of Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews
- Josh Lepawsky, Professor of Geography, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador
- Elizabeth Povinelli, Artist, Filmmaker and Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University
- Elvira Dyngani Ose, Director of The Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona
Day 2
- Fiona Raby and Anthony Dunne, Principals of Dunne & Raby and University Professors, The New School
- Michael Thompson, Emeritus Scholar, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
- Lara Gilmore, Co-Founder and President of Food for Soul and Refettorio Project
- Paola Antonelli,, Senior Curator and Director of R&D, MoMA, co-founder of Design Emergency
- Alice Rawsthorn, Author of Design as an Attitude, co-founder of Design Emergency
- Lydia Kallipoliti, Architect, Associate Professor, The Cooper Union
- Rory Holmes, Managing Director UK, ClearSpace SA
- Carolin Schelkle, Product Designer, ECAL
- Emmie Massias, Visual Researcher, Geo-Design, DAE
- Rocio Crosetto Brizzio,, Architect, GSAPP
- Ana Paola Hernandez Derbez, Architect, GSAPP
- Sumayya Vally, Architect, Counterspace, Honorary Professor, Bartlett School of Architecture
- Natalia Grabowska, Curator at Large of Architecture and Site-specific Projects, Serpentine Galleries
Day 3
- Blanca Callen, Lecturer and Researcher, University of Vic, Co-founder of Restarters BCN
- Grace Akese, Research Fellow, University of Bayreuth
- Bas Van Abel, Entrepreneur, Designer, Founder of Fairphone and De Clique
- Veena Sahajwalla, Director of UNSW Sustainable Materials Research and Technology Centre
- Alice Rawsthorn, Author of Design as an Attitude, co-founder of Design Emergency
- Beatriz Colomina, Professor of History of Architecture, Princeton University
- Mark Wigley, Professor of Architecture, Columbia University
- B+ (Arno Brandlhuber and Olaf Grawert), Architects, Principals at B+
- Sandra Poulson, Artist
- Sophie Chao, Researcher and Lecturer, University of Sydney
