 Good evening everyone. Hello. I'm Caroline Bowman the director at Cooper here with Smithsonian Design Museum and as all of you know, we are nearing the end of the fourth annual NYC by Design Week and I know all of us are running across town east-west north-west. So I really appreciate your presence here tonight and I am thrilled for tonight's design by hand talk with Bertha Campana, founder with his brother Fernando of Estudio Campania, one of contemporary design's most influential and exciting atelier. We are celebrating Brazil not only this week but all summer long at Cooper Hewitt and all of you are invited to the party and I look forward to seeing you at the party. Let me tell you a little bit about that. In our renewed Arthur Ross Terrison Garden, which National Design Award winner Walter Hood transformed in the last few months, we also asked him to pay homage to Burley Marks. Many of you have probably seen the fantastic exhibition at the Jewish Museum just a couple of blocks north of here and Walter has come up with Burley Marks inspired benches called Copa Banana and our wonderful editor today was correcting me because I of course was calling it Copa Banana, she said no it's Copa Banana. So anyway we had a good chuckle this afternoon over that. And on July 14th and July 28th as part of the fantastic cocktails at Cooper Hewitt series, we're actually injecting an element of performance this year. So you'll have Juilliard performers one night, modern dancers another night and we have two nights dedicated to the global music of Rio de Janeiro based music producer DJ Chief Boima who will be here. So come with your dancing shoes on. Brazil's studio Campania joins a long list of iconic design firms who have participated in Cooper Hewitt's design by hand series. It is thanks to our partner Van Cleef and Arpel's that Mari Mekko, Heath's ceramics, Ralph Rucci and Pixar Animation Studios have led workshops dedicated to the exploration of the human hand in the design process. Having collaborated with the Campanhas in 2008 for our exhibition Campana Brothers Select, I am delighted to welcome Armbejo back to Cooper Hewitt tonight. While a studio Campania is renowned for its use of found materials, a commitment to the handcrafted object has remained absolutely central to the Campana's design philosophy since the brothers first produced their collection in 1983. Working out of their studio in Sao Paulo, the brothers frequently partner with local artisans with an eye toward bringing Brazilian craftsmanship into a dialogue with contemporary design and manufacturing. Their design process is entirely informed and advanced by direct engagement with weaving, sewing, embroidery and other forms of handcraft. The Campanas have exhibited their collections in museums and galleries around the world and Campana Design objects are in the collection at the Cooper Hewitt, the Museum of Design of the Collective, the Feature Design Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Saltua-George-Pompidou and the Museum of Modern Art in Sao Paulo. The recipients of numerous awards and honors, the brothers were Miso and Obje's designers of the year in 2012 and that same year they were selected for the Comitê Colveia Prize in Paris, received the Order of Cultural Merit in Brasilia and were awarded the Order of Arts and Letters by the Minister of Culture in France. Fernando and Ongberto are also the founders of the Instituto Campania which promotes the protection and conservation of Brazil's historic and artistic heritage with particular attention to architecture and design. Tonight's conversation coincides with the launch of three days of intense hands-on workshops for people of all ages with Ongberto and Ian de Zendruc of the Instituto Campana. Special thanks to our dear friends at Dancliffe and Arpels for their enthusiasm and for their generous support and embrace of the Design by Hand series. And now I have the honor of welcoming my very dear friend and Cooper Hewitt-Trustee, Alain Merleau, who is also the president and CEO of Dancliffe and Arpels of the Americas to the podium. Enjoy tonight's program. Excuse me, I'll return following Ongberto's talk for a brief Q&A. Thank you very much, Caroline, and I'm pleased to learn about the Copa Banana event. I'm sure it will be also a Copa Caperrinha event, which will be one of the most interesting part of the event, I believe. Thank you very much for the introduction. I will be sure because you said a lot about the whole program of the Cooper Hewitt-Trustee Design Museum and obviously of the honoree and performer of tonight, Ongberto Campana. I just want to say a few words first to thank you very much for being here. It's quite an impressive audience. The room is completely full. Thank you very much for being here tonight. I would also like to give a few words about the partnership and the friendship between the Cooper Hewitt and Dancliffe and Arpels. I believe in our history we had three dates. The first one was 1906, which was the creation of Ongcliffe and Arpels in Paris. The second one was 1939, where Ongcliffe and Arpels arrived in the Americas, in New York. And then 2011, where Ongcliffe and Arpels and the Cooper Hewitt got married. Almost married. We started to date. We organized together a major exhibition. Here the Cooper Hewitt, which is till this date the most important exhibition. In the number of pieces we introduced, we showed and in attendance. It was the last exhibition before the Cooper Hewitt actually renovated to what it is today. It's an incredibly beautiful museum. And in 2013 we created together this program, which is designed by hand. We crafted it together with exactly the same purpose, assessing that we have a different activity between a museum and a jeweler, but we have the same values and the same mission in life, which is showing the magic power of the human hand. In a world of machines, in a world of digital connections and dematerialization, human hands have some magic powers. And we wanted to express it through different arts and crafts. That's why we started with Mario Meco, and then his ceramic, and then Raffucci, and then Pizzar Animation Studio, which was kind of unusual thinking of hand, but actually they showed us that they do everything by hand initially. And then tonight we have the great pleasure to welcome Humberto Campana, the representative of the Campana Brothers and the Estudo Campana. So Caroline, you said a lot about what you do and where you expose in this museum, in Domomars, in Paris. Just a special, personal word about Panclifales in Brazil. We love Brazil, so it's really a real personal pleasure to have you here. I was in San Paolo last week. Just at the time we introduced the collection, just the night of the impeachment of Dilma. Just a perfect timing to talk about something else and politics in Brazil. And we have a special connection with your country, with your culture, with not only the beauty of your country, but the riches of your culture. And I'm sure through your art, through your craft, you express it fantastically. So thank you very much for being here. I know you're here just for a few days. You're traveling back tomorrow, correct? Yes, yes. So Berto, without further ado. Good evening, everybody. I'm very happy to be here. Thanks for Cooper Hewitt, the museum, Van Gleef, to bring me here and all the team of Cooper Hewitt and Van Gleef to help in this project. Well, most of the times I do the lectures with my brother Fernand, but he couldn't come, so he speaks better than I. I will try to do my best to make comfort for everybody and quickly. I'm not a philosopher, not theoretical. I'm hands-on. So I'm going to start from my early works, my beginning, until the last project. I grew up in the countryside of Sao Paulo State. There was plenty of waterfalls. The space is beautiful. My father was a agronomic engineer and my mother a primary teacher. My family came from Italy to grow coffee. They had farms in Brazil. So my whole childhood was among the trees, the animals. When I was a kid, people asked me, what would you like to be when you grow up? I told them I would like to be indigenous from the Amazon. It's funny, because then I moved to Sao Paulo. I had 20 billion inhabitants, big urban cities like New York, but very chaotic, very fascinating. Sao Paulo is beautiful. It's ugly, but the beauty is on ugliness. You need to find beauty in special places and you construct beauty. This fascinates me in Sao Paulo. Some images are very colorful, lots of things in the streets. I came to Sao Paulo to study law. I'm a lawyer. I studied law for five years, but I was very mediocre as a lawyer, because I was a child, so immature when I needed to choose a career. I practiced law for six months, but I was so bad. I decided to quit, and I told myself, I want to construct my life with my hands. It was like a mantra, and by myself I started working with sculptures in metal. So this was one of my first sculptures in metal. Then Fernando one day came to give me a helping hand in my studio, because Fernando just graduated in architecture. He studied design, so he started giving functionality to my early works. So we did a collection of 42, that was 1989, of almost 30 chairs, all talking about imperfection, mistake, chaos, and we named this collection Uncomfortables, because at that time we didn't know what path should we go to design or art, and we were kind of confused, until now I don't know what I do, because I like to do many things. This was our earlier works, and then there was an article of Domus Magazine about this collection from Marco Romanelli, and he kind of gives some tips, you know, that maybe would be better if you move in the direction to make dialogues with Italian brands, you know, companies that could manufacture our work. And I thought, well, we didn't have so much means to construct furniture, nobody was interested in Brazil to do our furniture, so I started working around the materials. So the materials for us represents like characters, waiting for an author, you know, it looks like this, there is always a flirt with the material. So these are our early works, where we kind of change, we give a second life to the material, and we try to give nobility. I guess the most demanding thing for me is to give nobility for triviality. This is important to change the DNA, it looks luxurious, perfect, beautiful, looks like made in a cartel or a big company in plastic, but that was made in our studio. This is, I love this chair because it's garden rose, and one night I have a dream of this chair, the image of this chair came in my dream, and by chance I had a metal structure like this and some garden rose. Immediately when I woke up, I went to the studio and started working, and this chair is very nice. All this also is made out of bubble wrap, almost 40 layers of bubble wrap. It's interesting because it's very easy this chair because there is a metal structure, eight screws that hold the bubble wrap, and one day we did a show in Rio de Janeiro and I sent this chair to Rio de Janeiro. The next day when I went to the museum, the chair was completely destroyed, and I told them what to have done. Oh, they told me no, we were looking for the chair. So it was this because immediately we reconstructed the chair because all the legs are dismantled. It was very practical. I would love to come back with this chair again with another material because this was early 90s. Then also we start to change the functionality of one material, bring another, water drains with transforming a beautiful pattern of shadows on the ground. This was interesting because this was a blade of polycarbonate and was looking, trying to make a fruit bowl. And this is the polycarbonate. And then I saw, no, this could be big, we can make a chair. This was early 90s also. And then this chair was presented here at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and it's part of its collection as well. Oh, these are some polis full of things in the streets. God, people that God gathers cardboard in order to make them, making their living. So I like and pay a lot of attention these scenes in the streets. They are so, I try to see beauty in those materials all day. Then we did a collection of cardboard. I love the chair of Frank Gallery, those early ones, they are beautiful. And I would like to do something, but I try to mix, you know, make a hybridism between two materials. The base also of our works kind is doing hybridism between artificial, natural, plastic. It's all about this, most of our projects. I think this is our history, you know, because I live in the countryside, now I live in a urban center, I move all over the world. These two universes, the primitive and the sophisticated, the urban side. I like this because it's mixed with plastic. This is present, was presenting like an exhibition from Peter Design Museum. It was all made in our student cardboard. And this is just one of a kind. I would like to come back. We did so many things, so many things, because then I got interested in other materials, so I moved, I don't stop. I like, me and my brother, we like to explore different universes. I don't like to get stuck in just one universe. I think creativity in the 21st century is to take out limits. You can explore different frontiers and come back with more material eyes again to your career. This is where it starts, where our work starts to be with this chair. One day I was walking in Sao Paulo and I bought a bunch of ropes. And I took the bunch of ropes to my studio and the bunch completely deconstructed in front of my eyes. And I looked at that, well, both one looked at the other and thought, wow, we could construct a chair like this. And how to do it? We construct a metal structure and myself I started living. Most in the beginning I was myself who used to work with the hands. Today I like to be a, by side the artisans, dialogue with him, because I do so many things. So I don't have if I stay there, I will not do other things. And this made us famous. This was presented here in New York by Paul Antonelli in the Museum of Modern Art in 1998. And one day, that chair was part of a book of Mel Buyers and was edited in the book. And one day the Massimo Moroz, the art director of Edra, a company that most manufacturers I would work in Italy, was interested in this chair to produce the lounge in the salon. And he asked for a project, but he didn't know how to make a project of something so chaotic. So we made a movie, a small video that is going to be presented here. Please. This was 1997, this video. It's funny, it has no sound because me and my brother, we are having a quarrel. We didn't know that it was recording, so Edra took out his song. In Milan, in the salon, and they did this chair very completely, much more full of cords, because this chair has 400 meters of cords, ropes, and they brought an artisan from Sicily to develop this project. And this chair made us well known all over the place. And since then we have a collaboration with them since two years ago, we have been dialoguing. I like to be close to the companies that I work. It's very important to be like a family. This is another scene that I saw in São Paulo, people throwing garbage, not garbage, I don't know how to say this year. Yeah, but the containers, I put in containers in the streets, and I like, you know, I saw this, I like this photo because it has a hybrid between green and wood. And from those scenes, I did the favela chair. It was interesting because where my studio is based, there is plenty of boxes of wood. And when I did this chair, I myself also gathered the slats on the streets nearby the studio and I myself constructed this. And I like this chair because it shows that everybody can do it. You know, because the philosophy of this chair is that you create a structure and then you fill it up, the space of this chair very randomly like the favela houses, the houses in the favela. This also part of later, ten years later, Massimo Morose decided to produce this bed. It's funny because Massimo Morose, he was a great creator. He was the he was the generation of Andrea Brands, Sots, and he passed away two years ago. And he decided to do this collection of beds one year before he knew that he has cancer. So he was a poet. Everything that I learned was with him, you know, he's a very clever person and he always says to us never follow trends. Don't go, don't fall go follow your heart and since then we are doing this because today everybody do 3D printing and I like we decide to like a statement to work with hands because it's important my country has a lot of tradition and crafts and I try to express all those manifestation in my work, me and my brother. This is another scene in the streets and at that time it was 2001 we're looking to do investigation a new way of make a grocery without using the tradition of methods. So watching those scenes we did a series of chairs that I'm going to show you very quickly came with bunkies it was like a dinner that was the first one those plushies are Chinese plush these had some sounds inside the animal so when people was used to sound it was very interesting. Then we had bears Mickey Mouse, this was a project that we had done for Disney Great Britain and all those chairs are manufactured in our studio in a small edition because you cannot do mass production with this. So we decide to make a small edition to maintain the philosophy of our studio, the hand zone and also give jobs. I like I see my studio like a small school of crafts sometimes there is some different manifestation of weaving some embroidering welding, working with wood and I love this I go everybody to talk and discuss. For me it's very important this dialogue with the artisan another one and from this then we start to get in contact with NGOs we decide to bring the plush alligators to an NGO of wife of prisoners to maintain to give them income and we bought leather cattle leather and give them to reproduce an alligator so the alligator is so beautiful it's very expressionist sometimes that doesn't look like an alligator but I like this and I like this project and since then we did a collection in leather they produce, we buy from them and we manufacture it attached one to the other very manually sometimes takes three weeks to do one of those chairs and then we start also this is a new project that we have been presenting lately was in Paris in Carpenters Gallery where we ask also those communities to make cushions and we did a collection of we are doing a collection of sofas and arm chairs with the skin of ship ship from Uruguay this also was one of the projects that we are working with it's a community in the north of Brazil where they are used to do those dolls made out of cloth from the factories that they have in the area we decide to buy those dolls and make chairs they are manufactured in the studio and we did this was the first project that we unconsciously without, we are going to work with angels but without thinking how we could change people's life those chairs start to be on the media on the media so people start to buy those dolls unconsciously we change their lives, the people who does that because after that they bought a loft so they produced this so that was the key you know why not do work more and more because Brazil is this you know I think a designer today has to be political you can change life's people it's not to make just a beautiful object but needs to have something behind it for me it's important to do something that has a meaning not to do another object for me this is talks from this we decided to do both the dolls and make this rug in Italy for me I like this rug very much with the this was it was another project that we did for Lacoste Lacoste asked us to make a special edition of the Polo and we had we tried to put our brand you know because we always work with already existed materials so we asked to send us 2,000 logos Lacoste crocodiles we went to a community in Rio de Janeiro of Ladies Association another project and we asked them to create a polo with 2,000 crocodiles always attached with handmade the the polo is not so comfortable but it's beautiful I think it's important for you to do things not worry and then you start getting mature and then we start coming back with the project with another eyes this is important for me to make a testimony of my time these were also special edition second special edition produced in this favela Lacoste paid the ladies to do this and this is also another moving back to another universe this was some experiments to make sofas without the tradition to be so bridged I say these are small landscapes micro architectural micro ecosystem this was inspired in alligators this bow it's very these are two big pillows one off the top of the other very simple this is another story that I would like to put some more image about this at that time that was 2002 we are also looking to create a material a new material with different materials so we this chair with felt pieces of carbon EVA rubber and we rolled all those materials we rolled and then we created this chair then one day I saw the back the bottom of the chair and then oh this can be also we can investigate the bottom of the chair so we named sushi series where everything is rolled for us sushi in Brazil means rolling because we have the largest Japanese community outside Japan in Brazil so the Japanese food means sushi everything so we have the sushi delivery but means rolling and observing this we create a collection start rolling the materials we buy the materials these are manufacturing this tool the component one by one we glue one to the other then we fix in the structure this is Dorival then we create those chairs this is a series of chairs and projects that we named sushi series this is a project for a garden Casa Brutus in Douglas has to make a garden a prototype of a garden and me and my brother we imagine a garden that people can go under or on the top and this would be big aquariums in glass but that was only a project there will be two buildings one that people can go up on the top and under the the roof sometimes this sort of takes one month to be manufactured then we start to mix with another material with brass this was a show that we did in Paris only mirrors we named ocean there was an aquatic liquid atmosphere in the gallery this is another story that I would like to tell you this is a dance in the north of Brazil named Maracatu during the Carnival people they dress those big wings out of these materials and they dance they grow and observing this we create Rivetone has to create a cabinet for them for the project of Jet Nomad and with inspiring in those dancers those dancers we create a series of cabinets named Maracatu because Maracatu is the name of the dance I visited the Rivetone at the years and I decided to work with the ofcots ofcots of Rivetone so we select the best ofcots beautiful and they did this this project they made this this project took almost two years because there were some details you know it's amazing how each color looks randomly but it's very we create a map to one color next to the other to create this construction of the colors we this project I think the color color constructs the object each one is inspired in the Brazilian fruit from Amazon they can be they can be this and portable we love nature now I'm going to present a series of objects made of inspired in nature the countryside sometimes we saw those scenes and I always like to make a portrait of those things I think me and my brother we are storytellers we are like photographers that makes portraits of things that we see and well so inspired in this situation we bought some bricks named this Kobogua this is a brick very normally used in Brazil and we create a series of objects inspired in terracoata nowadays we did a shop in São Paulo that's going to open the whole architecture is constructed with this brick and it's a shop for ease up in São Paulo it's one of the first projects in interior architecture I love this table it was produced by Edra but it wasn't successful we didn't so sell that so unfortunately but I love this project sometimes I think takes a long time for people to understand or make the project it's not good I don't know why I try to think this way I'm a visionary not rejected I don't know this is the Americans of the world they plant this bamboo in Salvador in the airport of Salvador to hide the planes from the bombs from the Germans so this is a tunnel of I guess one kilometer and a half full of bamboos and whenever I go to Salvador I like to go under this looks like it's cleaning my soul and now again a series of projects made out of natural materials bamboo first this with a screen then a chair I love this chair because we mix acrylic with bamboo it's just one of a kind this chair I went to Taiwan in the countryside of Taiwan and I worked one week with an artisan to make this chair I love this chair because they don't touch the where people sit doesn't touch there is a space behind between them this bamboo is interesting because you need to make a drill put some sand in the bamboo then you start firing a master in order to curve the sand doesn't allow the bamboo to to open to crack because we did a collection for Aless in Iron and we send the prototypes in bamboo and Alberto Aless loved the prototypes so he decided it's very rare to Aless produce handcrafts in their companies so they love the project and this project it's made in China by bamboo artisans and it's very nice I like this project very much it's funny how sometimes we can change the companies philosophy result by the chance it was a prototype that I made to be in Iron and then produced in bamboo this is another project that we made with the collaboration with the Baccarat in France we visited the Baccarat company in the countryside of France it's beautiful and we went there during the evening to see the workers work and I decided to pick up a very traditional chandelier, very iconic chandelier from then and make a mix with bamboo so this is primitivism and tradition we create this shock between nature and the elegance of France the history is another hybridism and this I love I did this project in Virginia I stayed one month with the glass blowers in Burano and we did a collection we named it Campana, Campani di Campana Campana means bells in Italy in Italian and we make this exhibition of 12-18 meters of cascade of glass bells and mixing with the natural materials this is another project that I stayed three months in Rome working, I did a show exhibition in Rome where a project they contact a gallery in Rome they contact us to work with the tradition in Rome too and I fall in love with Rome and I create a collection that we named Barroco, Rococo and this is part of the museum we did a show in the Musee des Arts Decoratives in Paris four years ago and where we mix the bronze bronze elements mixing with contemporary elements also combs, scissors plate of materials and the bamboo this is another collection that we use the name of this project which is a luxury where we create a shock between what is luxury today and we pick up very simple materials the bamboo the color is a grass that grows in Brazil named capindolado, golden grass grows only that part of Brazil and it looks like gold and we mix with the diamonds so that was a project that I like to do many things investigate fashion sonography nowadays we just finish a house in São Paulo and this project born from water galoons in my house because I love the shape the typology of the water galoons and I collect for I guess one year I plant of water galoons and I didn't know what to do I like to flirt with the things and one day I have the idea to connect one to the other through weaving and this is a project that we named the trans plastic where we imagine the universe, the world being the nature of nurturing eating the plastic and growing feeding by the plastic and then some gas galoons this project was made in Vietnam with inner tubes tires from the Vietnam because it has plants of motorcycle it's a project that we did also in a village in Vietnam and those scenes it's very Brazilian in the country side we saw those plastic chairs very bad design and decided to give them an upgrade so we started weaving plastic chairs with Brattam it's funny because when you approach an artisan that's most of the whole life he used to do one single thing a basket of wicker it's difficult the first contact because he kind of refuses you and then I need to seduce seduction game and then little by little they start understanding and then we became very good friends it's beautiful how you change because they're humor they change because they are doing something new for them we enlarge their vocabulary and we did that this all made in our studio some of them took one month and a half to be manufactured this project I love because this was made here for here this museum I have a lot of effect from Cooper Hewitt it was a project to select the permanent collection and project something from that inspiration and we decided to work we choose the things weaving Brattam, bamboo, wicker and from that we created this project this we present in Miami when we were in design of the year we work with the Brazilian gemstones and wicker then this project this branch of trees lamps this is vanilla glass and lamp this was a camper shoe store in Sao Paulo and here in Manhattan also and this is another that we did in Fidenzy for them we destroyed a long time ago now also again inspiring take these rackets we work with nylon and brass create a shock there is detail in bamboo this is another and watching those scenes in Sao Paulo Sao Paulo there are some corners where you see people repairing the Austrian chairs those Austrian chairs and this is near by my studio and I always ask to the weaver to keep the leftovers because I would like to make a project and he gave to me all those leftovers and we start weaving with nylon we create a series of collections of furniture named Detonado Detonado means chaos in Brazil and this is the guy weaving then where we mix with the straw we did a patchwork of the straws this is another I did this project two years ago observing the the rugs that were between the shoes we made a collection of this we used to cover the furniture this is an example that I would like to give sophistication from a material that we do not see as a rug we polish the shoes but something very precious at least for me well now I'm coming in the end of my speech when I was a kid I told you I wasn't like an Indian I think today with 63 years old I've finally become an Indian because I'm doing a lot some projects with the straw the Brazilian straw this was a project that we did for Eswarovsk I also permitted this in high tech we did a big chandelier we're using their crystal we're messing with the optical fiber I love this project the name was my private Okka Okka means the indigenous house this was a project for Massimo Morose they love his chandelier and he decided to produce this in synthetic raffia I love this one of my favorite objects the bed this is also part of that collection these are the museums this is the Vitor Frank Gehry Zara did in Gubro Mia Meyer in Sao Paulo this was in Sweden two years ago I worked with a group of students at the University of Umea and along with that we there helped to create these woods, the name is woods to bring woods, the nature inside the inner space the interior this is a project that we just finished one year ago it's a house of two young people because we have a problem with the very heat because lots of sun in front of the house so we covered the whole facade in order to give more comfort in terms of warm and also beautiful I think like a big plant a big vegetable covered in the house this is the last project we did, we made last year as I told you Brazil has a tradition of crafts and why, what me and my brother recently we are trying to do is to rescue traditions that are disappearing one day I got in contact with this gentleman his name is Pedito because he's used to make shoes and I love the way that shoes were made all handmade and he lives in a very remote place in Brazil and I visited and I propose him to work together I created the structure for the object and he would cover the whole object with his work the only thing that we choose were the materials and also the colors and me and my brother give him totally freedom to do whatever he could do this was the worst salary so I start picking up details and to transform it to furniture this is the area, it's beautiful it's very dry, like a desert in the northeast of Brazil very dry this is the landscape his father was used to make clothing for the Kanga Sales it was a group of bandits like Robin Hood they steal the farmers to give the poor and they were very fashionable they asked for his father to create their clothes with leather so that was the origin of this work there was Maria Bonita I'm only late imagine this in 20s and only a single woman in the middle of this they were very dangerous they killed people and they create a whole aesthetic and from this we create a series of objects that's named Kanga Sales in homage to these those people all handmade in leather different colors this approach they took almost one year and a half to very detailed they used straw to make the very light the furniture and they took cover the details are his universe he dreams also straw to make light with cover with straw and leather and this is my favorite one because it has so many details from the salary it's also metal on it something I don't like to go more investigating now we are going to in June we are going to present another new work that I'm going to for the very first time I'm going to show just one object it's a project that we did with the collaboration of a community of embroidery ladies also in Brazil and we made a portrait of them we make photos, photographs their faces and ask them to embroider their faces because they are normally used to make tablecloths and we went to approach them we enlarge their vocabulary because we propose a new object and we create a series of 40 lamps because the project has 40 ladies embroidery and 40 lamps that's going to be present 40 lamps with their faces embroidery very details one of each color different colors that's it yes wow earlier tonight you said Caroline usually it's my brother who does these talks I hope I'm okay that was unforgettable thank you so so much for that very personal dive into the studio and how you think, how you're inspired it was really quite moving and beautiful so thank you thank you I tried to do my best and I remember in 2008 when you were here for a Compana Brothers Select you were generous enough to also give a talk just for the Cooper Hewitt team and one of your slides I remember to this day was just the sky and you were talking about looking at the clouds and how that fueled your creativity and your thoughts and it really affected me because I look a lot at the clouds too but something that struck me tonight is we all live these really fast paced lives and sometimes it's hard to slow down and really notice everything around you and you and your brother excel at that and how do you do that as you're working on so many projects and exhibitions and programs how do you just stop and appreciate this world around us and then integrate it into your work it's part of my DNA to look things that hidden corners and it stimulates me to create beauty from something very trivial I put all my vision, my eyes in corners, hidden corners and this is the challenge that this is me I like to transform this I think me and my brother we are alchemists in order to change the DNA of the material and give them the material another DNA but everything, my eyes don't stop look everything details I'm not a good talker not a philosopher or a theorist but I think my intellectuality I put it in the hands and we were observing because everything I learned was working with the hands in observing going to museums and observing watching and I would like, oh I'm jealous I would love to be someone like this an artist needs to be jealous in a very good way it makes you grow you are indeed an alchemist absolutely you must have been a pretty unhappy lawyer yes very good I tried to lead suicide I was in a high building and afraid of myself please don't go serious about your personal life and how long you are a lawyer and then how you learn the skills I guess 8 months I don't remember very well because Brazil in the 7th there was the military government so for you to be first of all for you to be an artist at that time was considered a terrorist getting laid so my family they didn't allow me to get in touch with arts and could be considered a communist so I chose the easiest way because I love literature and the University of Lawn in St. Paul was famous for poets, writers that they didn't became lawyers maybe so I decided to move to the anti-reaction then I moved after a great way I moved to Bahia because Bahia was at that time Mick Jagger, James Jordan were used to go there in the remote places and that was beautiful trained for me was glamour and I moved there and I stayed in a beach I didn't know what to do there was a friend of mine and he started to commission myself to make mirrors with seashells so my early beginning I was in the shore then glued in the wall and it wasn't ugly it was very naive but there was something beautiful something that I was used to do this I never worked with the hands then I stayed there one year I moved to St. Paul and started taking courses of jewelry welding terracotta and then one day Fernando came to give me a helping hand giving functionality to those objects and that was our beginning so when was the moment when the two brothers looked at one another and said we should form a studio never what happens is spontaneous spontaneous he never pretended to be he keeps staying because he was working in St. Paul of Bahia now he was he was working with Basquiat Keith Herring so he has all those you know a vibe of being modernity because I was very naive at that time I was a lawyer my education trying to be an artist so I did horrible pieces in the beginning very without and he tried to polish me and little by little I started traveling then we did that exhibition uncomfortable with the art of Marco Romanelli and then came the invitation from Massimo Morose for that year and the invitation also from Paola Donnelli and then little by little our life starts to change but it was always difficult to be an artist even today you know after 30 years it's more demanding because you need to bring new things it's you don't stop there well the other thing that's demanding I think is working with a brother a family member and Fernando is an architect a trained architect my brother is an architect and I would have trouble working with him I love him but you know so I'm just curious you talked about a choral and Sampatico talk a little bit about the relationship what was that choral over there will be a book about the peace side of Campano we did so very crazy things together you know because he's trying not as much more I'm very chaotic and he's more and more organized so it starts from this sometimes I go very I'm impatient he's calmer than me but there are the people of this too because he's very creative also sometimes he comes with an idea then myself with another and there is already who is going to win and we ask the studio to be the judges which project is going to be easy to do because it's always yeah but we travel together we have been traveling a lot you are very good friends 80 years difference I'm the older one so I'm curious about the studio and I'm dying to come visit Ian is clearly very happy to be part of the team and we're super pleased to have Ian with us this week too with all of our design by hand programs tell us a little bit about the ambiance in the studio how many people are there where you recruit the people that are working with you and then lastly when you're not doing a small edition and things are sent out to be manufactured how do you stay involved okay the whole studio component is based in the center downtown St. Paul in old garage where Fernando has lived in the beginning and there are just 30 people we like the very small atmosphere it's like a family everybody has something doing there was I guess four or five internships working in architecture make projects in the computer and the rest is artisans that we got from the fashion the ladies that work make the plush chairs they come from the working users to make dresses for ladies so we bring them to our studio and they are working for us I guess for almost 15 years and it's very small it's always something happening there it's very, I like this because there is one welding as I told you to be small is important because you can experiment many things and today we create an institute where we want to maintain our work alive and also to bring work with kids from the favelas, poor communities and teach them to change their lives as myself you know I change my life working with the hands so Ian he goes there every week almost in a week in the morning in the afternoon he works with kids and he brings them their universe things that they got in the street cardboard slats of woods and we we ask them to create objects it's funny when we did the favela chair 2003 it was controversial because it was very published but some people they told us that we take advantage of the favela not the poor people and that things stay in my mind for a long time and I think that criticism makes us to approach with more maturity you know to make this project and we want to enlarge this we want to maintain I want to to not to just work but some things that they can see reality so you're trying to teach them skills this is the idea and something that was bothering me for a long time make us conscious about why did I should choose that name you know in Brazil especially because it was people great kind of how many students are involved or how many children are involved right now that's fantastic myself whenever I'm in Sao Paulo I teach watercolors for them I like also to see their reality it's funny because it's a completely different world with their roles when I go there and ask them what do I like to be when you grow up drug dealer cocaine drug dealer their reality I guess being in contact then we bring them another reality because everything is negative you know they want to kidnap people they want to prove and I propose them me and Ian as much to show other things you know and it's difficult, it's not easy but it's going, it's a project that has been doing for one year I guess of two years three years he knows better because he's much more involved in the bridge well most of them have never seen watercolor obviously so they're completely it's something brand brand new now speaking of watercolor that leads me to something else that I'm curious about do you watercolor, how do you relax and think, get away from your project sometimes and create in a different way I mean you're so poetic you use metaphor all the time are you writing, are you sculpting I love to jog my hotel is nearby the central part and I have been jogging six kilometers every day I love to I was used to smoke and that was important to quit smoking so meanwhile I jog I start ideas I start to come into my mind and I like to walk long walks Saturday we walk six kilometers in Manhattan and after I run six kilometers I don't stop, I'm very very impatient I like to do things quickly I don't sleep I take sleeping pills and I like movies I love movies every weekend I'm used to see two movies on that movie theater I was going to say I'd meet you in Central Park tomorrow morning but I think you'll go too fast for me and speaking of experimentation you showed us one marvelous creative project after the next can you talk about something that you or your brother came up with that just didn't work and why I have so many projects so I think as a designer a creator you need to make mistakes you need to start to learn it's funny once we did that we make a chair for leather all in leather namely the leather works they're leather a chair leather all deconstruct in leather and Icom magazine they choose they make a list of the 10 worst designers good ugly, beautiful and 10 ugly worst and we are the first of the list of ugly parts ugly ugly and it was funny because Massimo Morose he was proud of that I remember that we were used to do lectures together he said I'm very proud to do the ugliest chair chosen by Icom that was fun because it's important for you to make mistakes be humble and maybe from that you learn more you give another so we did so many things that wasn't successful like that table that I love but didn't sell they had to take out of edition so so many things happen besides it's not glamour it's a lot of work transpiration and getting back to this question of quality control when things are manufactured elsewhere how do you and your brothers stay involved so that you know what the end product is going to look like and that you're happy with that we are not used to work with so many people we like to maintain our philosophy people who look for us they know our philosophy so we prefer to work very with few people but to make good things that we can trust sometimes we Skype sometimes I go I stay with them for one week trying to understand each other but normally we don't have never problems always people know what to look for expecting from us very special people like Acosta, Viviton, Bacara companies that I would love always dream to work with so it's a dream come true and the most the latest work that you showed is that what you're working on right now or is that already put to bed? no it's going to be an exhibition now in 15 days in Rio de Janeiro we make a box completely very normal box in wood 40 lamps of them each of one color with their faces and I'm curious to see all together because I just got that prototype and I decided to show for you the first time and first lighting? yes first lighting for them because normally they are used to make table gloves so I like to do things they're not only large techniques there is a smile in their face when they succeed and myself I enlarge my vocabulary also of techniques because the base of our work is the handcraft the material always the project starts from the material he says what he wants to be transformed I flirt with the material and then moving direction so far a lamp or a jewelry I was wondering about that because you're always telling stories in your different series of projects and I wondered if the story came first or finding looking at the rope and saying I want to make a chair out of this it seems like it's a little bit of each each year and then born the concept first is the material I think a designer needs to get the limit of the material it's important in my case to research its DNA and then after working a lot no playing with the material find a solution which object he wants to be transformed into it's so admirable too that you have some sort of blinders where you don't follow trends and you're really following your love for materials, textures, color I really scratch my head about how you do that because you're on all of these different international shows you'd think that you'd be influenced by what you're seeing but yet you remain completely independent as a thinker in caution as we got absorbed I think yes but sometimes I try to maximum always I ask myself is it compound? I organize component and I ask them sometimes I have ideas and first I ask them do you think this is component? sometimes they say no this is not component so I abort the project in terms to maintain the philosophy for our beginning what's the idea behind the branding or the mark here of component and how long have you had that? there was a comment that was in the sky I guess 20 years ago I don't remember the name of the comment and a friend of mine she was studying in Switzerland and she made her thesis in our brand she created this logo like a comment I like this yeah so this is an incredible opportunity and I'm hogging the stage so I want to open this up for questions from the audience hello thank you very much for your talk I was actually curious in a few of your previous interviews you've spoken about having as you say a wicked aggressive side and I was curious as to where it comes from from earlier artistic days and then how does that sort of develop in your later work as a designer it's funny because I guess we named that collection of uncomfortable I think that collection was a vomit by the 5 years in law school so I tried to you know my despair the anger, the military the power, the dictatorship also at that time Brazil, Brazilian designers were focused in Europe trying to pretend to be Italians or Japanese and that was my anger you know I tried to make a portrait explore the mistake, the perfection, the chaos yeah when they try to be more I think the materials that we choose to work along the years they're moving in something more comfortable because for 10 years we were naming them comfortable designers you know and more and more we try to the uproar with the best we try to find comfort with the help of the materials I first saw your work at 5 years ago and it just blew me away especially with the early work see all the world marks all the flaws which seemed like it was incredibly great for you to do as a new designer I've never seen anything of any other designers not worry about the little flaws you're showing them off now as you get also the second question as you get more and more well known are your pieces becoming more like collector items rather than actually being used now that's a good question because you know I project a chair that takes one month or a sofa to be manufactured nobody, no big company would like to to do those crazy obsessive objects so we decide to maintain smaller edition I maintain my studio you know I earn my money honestly, ethically and you know I decide to make small editions sell for a good price reasonable price because it's all hand made and it's stay room one alligator is teaching by so this takes time so we decide sometimes to go to this direction because maybe from those projects that takes long we can do apocalyptic objects we are still looking for you with the shoes in southern Brazil we are very well known to make plastic shoes inspired in our objects it's funny because I ask them when we were invited I like to maximum recycle recyclable plastic in the shoes so we have today we achieved 6% of recyclable PVC in our shoes because I like to if I can do bring all those elements is important so we those sometimes it's very expensive and I agree but I can't maintain my studio, my instructor, a small instructor and we don't sell so much you know it's not absurd I'm an art educator and I'm very struck by what you said in terms of opening young people's eyes to the importance of seeing possibilities in all kinds of materials is there any way in which you can work with a cohort of art teachers in your country and train them to the possibilities of materials that are local we're all across the country but whenever it's local and have them come up with their ideas of what's possible in terms of stimulating children's creativity and imaginations and then possibly tie it to functionality but not necessarily but it sounds like you would be the perfect inspiration to champion a project that so inspired you well I travel a lot a lot because I love to travel I don't stop in Brazil but we can even can help us it would be interesting to bring them in the favela to see the reality because I was used to teach I did a lot of workshops in France Vabuché in Brazil Italy I was used to do a lot of things and other days I kind of restrict because I'm getting old I don't have the energy of 10 years ago and I try to concentrate in my creations because whenever you teach you give away all your inspiration so I try else to maintain myself but it would be fun I like to get in contact we can after give you my address and discuss I'm very pleased I'm super pleased to hear that you work with NGOs and kids from favela sell them artists and raise social responsibility to their work and maybe Ian can even chime in my question is I'm sure there are a lot of hurdles to work in incarcerated women and men how do you what are the logistics of it how do you make them show up to work how do they come sober how do you make sure that they can actually produce well those the logistics there is the institute component that we work in the favela and the things that we do for the project studio component the chairs in contact with the people who already work with them so there is a whole logistic behind that because it's easier because sometimes for me imagine to you go to the northeast to brazil also I decided to do myself I got in contact with the community of weavers of golden grass in the center of brazil and I phone then I told I would love to make objects and then please come visit us I visited it took eight hours by car and I make a lot of drawings they all say we are going to do etc and then the next they phone me we are not going to do so we decide to have people that works contact with all the whole make all the logistics transportation everything taking care it's difficult, it's not easy so I think we have time for just one more question it's not really a question it's more of a statement and I'm kind of emotional when I say this but I had the pleasure to be in the company of studio in Sao Paulo and I would like to say that it is the most compassionate place I've ever been and when Ambarto talks about his workers I was there when they were making the chair with the dolls and the woman is very carefully placing all the dolls in a really special place and the man is in there with that large chair that's made out of, I think it's a bamboo the wood woman he's just there methodically very patiently doing it and I've been in a lot of studios in my life and I have to say that it's amazing what they are and I'd like to kind of nickname of the compassionate components because I think that's and when you look at that logo that logo actually symbolizes optimism so that's what I just wanted to say we worked on Destination Brazil together 2009 yeah beautiful conclusion to our evening thank you Ambarto I think we would all agree and what a special evening for the Kubrickua community thank you so much