SURevolution: Zöe Melo talks to SURevolution about “Uniendo Puntos”, Valencia Design Week and South American Design on the forefront of universal ideas

Zoë is a co-founder of TOUCH, a brand that develops, markets and promotes social and sustainable design projects. She also consults designers and brands on a variety of projects worldwide. Over her career, Zoë has collaborated with some of the most talented and renowned designers, photographers and art directors in fashion, art and product design. Her work has received worldwide attention and media coverage. In 2008 Dwell magazine recognized Zoë as a Nice Modernist for her work in social and sustainable design. She has organized and curated important design events and exhibits, such as Inter-Connected, a showcase of Portuguese and Brazilian design during New York Design Week. And most recently, collaborated in the exhibition "Uniendo Puntos" which was organized by Spanish designer Luis Eslava during Valencia Design Week. She will also be speaking at the TEDx Amazonia conference next November.

Marcella Echavarría (ME): What is Valencia Design Week?

Zöe Melo (ZM): Valencia Design Week includes a series of exhibitions, presentations, showrooms, discussions, workshops, meetings, markets and parties. The purpose is to promote design within society, and make design a part of daily life for the general public. Along with this, VDW shows innovative projects, fresh ideas that evoke new alternatives and the huge array of disciplines that represent the profession.

ME: What is the concept behind " Uniendo Puntos"

ZM:The concept behind “Uniendo Puntos”, which literally means “Connecting Dots,” started with showcasing craft and talent from a range of designers that span the Spanish speaking world. However, because definition excluded Brazil, we wanted to expand the exhibition to more than just the Spanish speaking countries. This exhibition is intended to set up a creative network of designers from Spain, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia and El Salvador. “Uniendo Puntos” paves the way to consolidate this collaboration between Latin American and Spanish designers. This diverse collection of products and designers flawlessly comes together in the name of collaboration and beautiful design.

ME: What was your criteria for selecting the products and designers

ZM: For this exhibition the criteria were based in the materials and craft techniques used by the designers that expressed the cultural and social aspects of each region where the product was made. Most of the designers have been long time collaborators of TOUCH with the exception of few that I wanted to collaborate with for a while and thought this was a great opportunity to bring them together. The aim was for each designer to emphasize the social and environmental issues of each country.

ME: How do you see the interaction between South America and Spain?

ZM: I believe that “Uniendo Puntos” is a great initiative of ADCV (Association of designers of the community of Valencia) under the coordination of Spanish designer Luis Eslava who brought us together. The exhibition made it possible to enact an ongoing dialogue and a cultural exchange between designers and curators from different backgrounds.

ME: What were some of the surprises you found while curating the exhibition?

ZM:There were not many surprises while curating, I knew exactly what I wanted and everything came together smoothly since most of the products were already at our studio. I would say that the surprise came after I arrived in Valencia, when I saw the actual exhibition installed. Then I realized that while we curated the work independently from each other, our individual selections complemented each other pieces extremely well and translated the concept of the exhibition perfectly into a complete show.

ME: How did the public react?

ZM: The public were genuinely interested in learning and understanding about the designers, products and the cultural aspects that connect Spain and Latin America.

Two products represented by SURevolution were selected for this exhibition:

The hand dipped silver leaves by Clara Saldarriaga-Colombia and the hand blown glass pumpkin collection from Kirah Design http://www.kirahdesign.com/