In developing Super Expo, we have traveled to various events, met interesting people and have had meaningful conversations along the way. The video interviews presented are our documentation of the journey that has taken us to Milan, Miami and back to Los Angeles.
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Piers Roberts, Designersblock, London

Designersblock curates and produces international shows alongside major design events and trade shows, achieving significant media profile and industry acclaim.

Shows take place in transitional architectural spaces and, since the company's launch in 1998, over 380 companies and individuals have chosen Designersblock as a platform to promote themselves to an international audience.

Designersblock provides a high profile and respected platform from which to promote design products and services to an international and UK audience of manufacturers, distributors, retailers, architects, specifiers, opinion formers, journalists, gallery curators, institutions, trade shows, designers, stylists, interior designers, public relations companies, branding and communications agencies, promoters, media and public.

Inclusion in a Designersblock show provides access to industry contacts built up and maintained over 7 years of international design shows and design related events.

Designersblock also produces shows and events for other organizations. In 2004 Designersblock produced The Scottish Show for The Lighthouse, Scotland’s Centre for Architecture Design and the City. The Scottish show travelled to Milan and London as part of Designersblock and then home to Glasgow. Also in 2004, Designersblock produced the first London Architectural Biennale and have produced shows for Selfridges, Mazorca projects and London College of Printing. Since 1998 Designersblock have produced major showcases of Swedish, Dutch, Norwegian and Danish design.

Designersblock has proven that, through presenting a diversity of designers and companies at different levels of maturity within a unified and coherent setting, the conditions are designed where synthesis and communication between exhibitors is enhanced. Graduates have access to people at the next stages and to manufacturers and distributors, whilst established companies benefit from access and association with new talent and ideas. Shared experience over the period of a show often results in the invaluable ‘deep’ networking that is unavailable in more traditional and competitive trade show environments.

designersblock.org.uk

John Cowden, GlassLab, Corning, NY
A Collaboration of The Corning Museum of Glass + Vitra Design Museum

GlassLab brings the ancient processes and skills of glassmaking together with creative and innovative minds in the design world. Contemporary designers, working with Corning Museum of Glass glassmakers in a unique mobile hot glass studio, have a rare opportunity to use the immediacy of hot glassmaking as a catalyst for innovation, rapidly prototyping their design concepts using glass. Performances in the past have included Yves Béhar and the Campana Brothers to name a few. At events such as Design Miami, viewers experience the excitement of hot glassmaking as they observe the interplay between the designer and glass artist.

The Corning Museum of Glass is home to the world’s most comprehensive collection of glass, spanning more than 3,500 years. A leader in education, research, and scholarship, the Museum brings the material to life through live glassblowing demonstrations and advances the next generation of artists working in glass through residency programs and studio workshops.

cmog.org/GlassLab

Aad Krol, VIVID Gallery, Rotterdam

Situated in the cultural centre of Rotterdam, Saskia Copper and Aad Krol founded VIVID Gallery in 1999. VIVID Gallery has featured some of the world’s most renowned designers via a program of six exhibitions a year on contemporary design. In addition, an exhibit once a year is devoted to a single designer from the past who's work is both inspiring and influential. Such exhibits have featured Joe Colombo, Wim Crouwel and Ettore Sottsass.

VIVID has maintained a strong relation with Dutch designers but at the same time, its scope remains truly international. In 2001, VIVID initiated the influential web-magazine on contemporary design: Designws.com. And in 2007, VIVID organized the Dutch Design Port exhibition in New York.

vividvormgeving.nl
designws.com

Jaime Riestra, OMR, Mexico City

OMR was founded in 1983 by Patricia Ortiz Monasterio and Jaime Riestra, the actual owners and directors. The gallery is located in a spacious early-twentieth-century house in the heart of the Roma district in Mexico City. From its beginnings, OMR has seeked to promote the latest artistic tendencies as well as Mexican and international contemporary art. It has a schedule of six to eight exhibitions per year in its Mexico City location and it has an unfailing presence at international fairs such as ARCO (Spain), Art Basel (Switzerland), Art Basel Miami (USA) and MACO (Mexico). OMR represents a broad spectrum of the most prominent painters, sculptors and photographers on both the Mexican and international art scene, without neglecting the emerging group of talented young creators.

galeriaomr.com

Jaime Riestra, OMR, Mexico City

OMR was founded in 1983 by Patricia Ortiz Monasterio and Jaime Riestra, the actual owners and directors. The gallery is located in a spacious early-twentieth-century house in the heart of the Roma district in Mexico City. From its beginnings, OMR has seeked to promote the latest artistic tendencies as well as Mexican and international contemporary art. It has a schedule of six to eight exhibitions per year in its Mexico City location and it has an unfailing presence at international fairs such as ARCO (Spain), Art Basel (Switzerland), Art Basel Miami (USA) and MACO (Mexico). OMR represents a broad spectrum of the most prominent painters, sculptors and photographers on both the Mexican and international art scene, without neglecting the emerging group of talented young creators.

galeriaomr.com

Ultra Environment, Art Positions, Art Basel Miami 08

Presented by Art Basel Miami Beach and Art Radio WPS1.org, Ultra Environment was an immersive futuristic environment for Art Positions. An architectural installation by Federico Díaz and E-Area, surround-sound audio, video projections and mood lighting, and live radio broadcasts provided the ultimate artworld beach lounge.

The theme celebrated in this year*#8217;s Art Positions environment was a retro-futuristic vision first explored by artists, architects, filmmakers, designers, and musicians of the 50s and 60s. Some of their organic shapes, space-age materials, hallucinogenic visions, dreamscapes and soundscapes, and early computer-assisted design have been integrated into this project.

artbaselmiamibeach.com

Stephen Burks, Readymade Projects, Brooklyn, NY

Stephen Burks is one of the most recognized American industrial designers of his generation. He and his New York studio, Readymade Projects, have been responsible for creative direction and industrial design on projects ranging from retail interiors and events to packaging, consumer products, lighting, furniture and home accessories.In addition, Stephen has developed innovative concepts for renowned international brands as well as continuing his commitment to sustainable design in the developing world.

Stephen believes design is the appropriate relationship of things. It can be as visible as the needs allow or as invisible as the constraints require. It is not simply the relegation of formal values, but the integration of strategic thinking with formal and material logic, as well as social and cultural authenticity. Under the best circumstances design communicates with immediacy. That communication can take the form of intelligence, wit, humor or sobriety depending upon what the user requires and what is appropriate for the activity.

readymadeprojects.com

Guiliana Zoppis, Best Up, Milan, Italy

After years of creating a sustainable design guide for the Salone International, Milan, Clara Mantica and Giuliana Zoppis decided to launch an installation dedicated entirely to this endeavor. Since 2007, Best Up (Beauty, Equality and SusTainability, UP) has staged their venture in accordance with the Salone at the Fabbrica del Vapore, an old steam factory in Milan. Aside from their annual participation, they work year round advocating sustainability a virtue within design.

bestup.it

VIDEO
Giuliana Zoppis, Best Up, Milan, Italy: Sustainability as Opportunity
As part of their 2009 trip to Milan, Super Expo paid a visit to an re-appropriated factory where they met Guiliana Zoppis, director of Best Up. She speaks about Best Up's unique point of view towards sustainability.

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Stephen Burks, Readymade Projects, Brooklyn, NY MAfrique: A Contemporary Vision of Africa for Moroso
Designer Stephen Burks speaks with Super Expo about the installation he curated for Italian furniture company Moroso at the 2009 Salone, Milan.

VIDEO
Public space + art = transformative experience
As night fell on Art Basel Miami, The SE Team witnessed a gathering of sorts at the Art Positions site. Who better to report than the person manning the information booth.

VIDEO
Expanding a dialogue part 2: OMR Galeria
Jaime Riestra, founder of OMR Galeria, explains an agenda of including their artists into a larger discussion, and bringing that discussion back to Mexico City to have influence there.

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Expanding a dialogue part 1: VIVID Gallery
While at Design Miami, Aad Krol speaks with Super Expo on how VIVID has reached beyond the Netherlands to create a broader and deeper conversation on design.

VIDEO
GlassLab: mixing tradition with imagination
John Cowden explains how GlassLab, with their mobile workshop, demonstrates their take on cross-pollination in glass to an engaged public at Design Miami.

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Three days in LA with Designersblock
The SE team speaks with Piers Roberts of Designersblock, London on the need and desire for a global creative event in LA.