Italian Design Day 2020

---

On November 22, 2020, the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago with Design Ambassadors Gianni Veneziano and Luciana Di Virgilio, of Veneziano+Team, presented a documentary video on the theme Signs for Food Future: Design as Nourishment for Better Futures, realized in collaboration with a group of students of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and IIT Institute of Design (ID). The project was part of the programming series for the Italian Design Day 2020, on the topic Drawing the Future. Development, Innovation, Sustainability, Beauty. The Italian Design Day is presented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cultural Cooperation.

According to celebrated Italian artist and designer Enzo Mari, people will never cease to eat, as they will never cease to design—the underlying theme that inspired this project. With important considerations for the dramatic emergency we faced worldwide in 2020, Signs for Food Future attempted to imagine how design and designers can contribute to build better futures. The video carried on a workshop led by Gianni Veneziano and Luciana Di Virgilio that, between January and March 2020, brought together 10 students from SAIC and ID to design new concepts for a new, significant synergy between humans and food. The workshop was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal was to join different disciplines—design, art and technology—and identify connections between design, food and future. Instead, a documentary video was created to reflect upon the topics discussed during the first phases of the project.