Portraying the various monsters that inhabit our present through cutouts, manipulations, and re-creations. We reveal monsters from fragments, using portraits of memory—these monsters illustrate the imperfection of a world that is constantly redefined through the voices of thinkers, critics, and agnostics.
Each communication piece for the Monstrous Designs conference was illustrated as an opportunity to shape and give form to a new monster—a Dantean detail of something complex, elusive, and difficult to define.
Around 1930, Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci described the institutional crisis of his time (from his prison cell) as a political hiatus: “The old system is dying, and the new cannot be born.” In this interregnum, Gramsci added, “a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”
The phrase was later adapted to: “The old world is dying, and the new cannot be born: now is the time of monsters.” This loose translation gained popularity following Brexit and Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential elections, as it perfectly captures the current landscape.
The Monstrous Designs conference, part of the Porto Design Biennale 2019 program, aims to reflect on the old monsters of the new millennium.
The conference proved to be a success within the PDB19 program. The illustrations played a significant role in interpreting and understanding the theme explored by the various event speakers.
