Riccardo Cenedella | CARPET MATTER

SWING Design Gallery is pleased to present CARPET MATTER, a solo exhibition by the designer Riccardo Cenedella (Turin, 1994).
Cenedella’s work is inspired by a fascination with material experimentation, exploring how contemporary society’s waste can be transformed into functional objects. He developed this design method while studying Material Futures at Central Saint Martins in London. In this period, he started taking a low-tech approach to design, influenced by the theories of the French philosopher Claude Levi-Strauss about the “bricoleur” described in one of his most important works (The Savage Mind, 1962). “The ‘bricoleur’ is adept at performing a large number of diverse tasks; but, unlike the engineer, he does not subordinate each of them to the availability of raw materials and tools conceived and procured for the purpose of the project. His universe of instruments is closed and the rules of his game are always to make do with ‘whatever is at hand’, that is to say with a set of tools and materials which is always finite and is also heterogeneous because what it contains bears no relation to the current project, or indeed to any particular project, but is the contingent result of all the occasions there have been to renew or enrich the stock or to maintain it with the remains of previous constructions or destructions. “
Carpet is the most common type of flooring in England, found in most private homes. Because carpets were not designed for recycling, when they are disposed of, only a small part can be completely recycled, and the rest must be sent to incinerators or landfills. Carpets are made mainly of petroleum-based fibers like nylon and polypropylene, both thermoplastics. Through experimentation and hands-on research, Cenedella developed a technique that lets him reshape and reuse the material. Specifically, the carpet is hand-dyed with pigments, and after it has dried, applied to wooden structures or shaped using molds.Then it is heated and melts, making use of its thermoplastic property to create a particular organic texture. A collection of unique, self-made pieces is on display in the gallery spaces, exploring the production processes in relation to the human habits of our day. These are chairs, lamps, and mirrors in which the process and narrative guide and anticipate their formal and aesthetic dimensions.

Riccardo Cenedella was born in Turin in 1994 and still lives and works in Turin.
He works with both private and public clients. His pieces have been exhibited at EDIT Napoli, the London Design Festival, the Milan Design Week, the Affordable Art Fair London, and the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. In addition to working as an independent designer, he is a university professor at IAAD in Turin (Institute of Applied Art and Design) where he teaches Product Life Cycle Assessment.

EDUCATION
2020 Degree in MA Material Futures from Central Saint Martins, London
2016 Degree in Product Design at the Politecnico of Turin
AWARDS
2021 Material Futures, Material Fund – winner
2021 The Art Foundation Fellowship Award, Material Innovation – finalist
EXHIBITIONS
2022 EDIT Naples
2022 No Space for Waste, Isola Design District – Milan Design Week, Milan, Italy
2022 Affordable ArtFair – London, UK
2021 Project for a better futures, United Matters – Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven,NL
2021 Green Grads – London Design Fair, London, UK
2021 TM Lighting gallery – London, UK
2021 MA Material Futures Graduate showcase – London, UK