Autoprogettazione Revisited

Autoprogettazione Revisted is the guide to a group exhibition of the same name that traces the influence of renowned Italian designer Enzo Mari’s 1970’s project for self-made furniture. Using the AA Gallery as a project space, nine artists and designers were commissioned to respond to Mari’s instruction-based furniture plans with their own set of instructions.

For Mari, the quality and integrity of a piece of work is determined when the shape of an object does not ‘seem’ but simply ‘is’. In a text accompanying the instructions, he writes that 'anyone, apart from factories and traders, can use the designs to make them by themselves'. Seen originally by Mari as a means for the self-fabrication of quality design objects, Autoprogettazione continues today as an expression of open source and collaborative design thinking made topical by a recent proliferation of digital technologies.

Contributing artists/designers: Phyllida Barlow, Broussard/Seilles, Martino Gamper, Graham Hudson, Keung Caputo, Lucas Maassen, Joe Pipal