Resign Academy
A forward-thinking Italian collective starts an incubator for better design
A stand-out presence in the Italian design panorama, founders Andrea Magnani and Giovanni Delvecchio define Resign as not just a design collective, but also as a methodology “for all the designers who believe in magic and symbolic value of things.”
After graduating from ISIA in Faenza, the pair began collaborating with local companies, as well as national design institutions and universities, always following their dream of joining highly intellectual concepts with innovative approaches toward craftsmanship. Keywords such as sharing, symbolic capital and sustainability have led them to create a series of playfully conceptual unique and semi-unique objects. Their performances—like randomly abandoning their objects in front of doors, ringing the bell, running away and observing people’s reactions—have gotten them some attention too.
At the heart of their signature technique is a workshop element, what they call a “Bottega 2.0” model based on the work of sharing knowledge and creating dense relationships. The tactic is one of the reasons why they’ve also launched the Resign Academy, aimed at creating relationships and generating ideas in a sort of amusingly monkish isolation.
The next event for true “resigners” takes place mid-July in Sassello, on the mountains of Liguria. The workshop is open to all as long as you sign up before 10 July 2010.
