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Formulas of Pathoswas an exhibition and installation project presented byIEDCenter Europeo di Designofex-Teatro dell‘Oriuolo (Oriuolo Theater)during Pitti Uomo no. 110. It has taken the form of a research space where fashion, visual arts and editorial processes converge in a shared imagination.
The projectowned by Francesca GavinEditor-in-Chief of EPOCH Review and Director of Visual Arts at Murmur. Author of numerous books on art and visual culture, Gavin is an internationally active curator whose experience includes Manifesta 11, Somerset House, Palais de Tokyo and MU Eindhoven. He also hosts the Rough Version radio show on NTS Radio.
Photos by Stefano Casatti and Cristina Andolcetti
“Pathos Formulas is a contemporary exhibition program, with a focus on fashion, presenting the work of 17 IED students,”he explainedFrancesca Gavin. “The exhibition highlights how our knowledge of the world around us is shaped by human history, and how today’s creative innovations can be part of a conversation that continues across generations.“
This initiative brought together the practices of students from many design disciplines: fashion design, styling, photography, graphic design, video, audio and interior design, enabling an interdisciplinary resource. Fashion was taken as a starting point: a language through which the spread and transformation of images, gestures and narratives could be seen.
“In IED, Pathos Formulas reveals a method of work where the disciplines negotiate and unite. This project takes shape in an open process built on relationships and connections between different periods of time. It is a place of exchange, an active place, where images become research tools that move between what we see and what remains to be explained.,” he explainedBenedetta Lenzi, Director of IED Firenze.
Photos by Stefano Casatti and Cristina Andolcetti
The core of the study is Aby Warburg’s idea thatPathosformelunderstood as the principle that governs the transmission and activation of concrete forms over time. The project considered history as a constant structure, asking how symbols, motifs and visual forms migrate, layer and reappear in new cultural contexts.
In conversation with the Florentine context — this is a monumental siteThe Warburgianreflection — the project is presented as an open historical space. It has been a space of resonance where the past is continuously renewed in the present. Here, “formulas of pathos” are understood as visual and psychological quotations that can travel across times and places, transcending the cultural boundaries of individual cultures.
The Pathos Formulas were part of theIt’s the 60th anniversary year of IED.Plural Intelligencesis a theme presented on the day of the anniversary and explored through a public program and journalNotes on Plural Intelligences. Its third issue,Future Memoriesfeaturing Francesca Gavin’s artocñe, it was presented and distributed in the old Teatro dell’Oriuolo (Oriuolo Theater) during Pitti Uomo.
Photos by Stefano Casatti and Cristina Andolcetti
Future Memories provided a common thread connecting the journal to Pathos Formulas. They come from a concrete place, between technology and human experience. As technology and artificial intelligence reconstruct cultures and histories, memory remains embedded in collective rituals, shared stories and everyday acts of reflection. Archives are therefore important tools to be constructed and studied in this context: in the habitats where data and narrative meet to explain not only how we remember, but why we remember things.
The finalization of Pathos Formulas will take place from 22nd to 25th October as part of Ultra REF, a special partRomaeuropadedicated to exploring and combining the fertilizers of different artistic languages.
PHASES OF THE EXHIBITION
This show has startednine research groupsdeveloped by working groups including designers, photographers, stylists, and visual artists.“It emerged as a resonance space where the past is continuously renewed in the present,”Gavinhe explained.
The exhibition showcased the work of a multidisciplinary team of seventeen students from across the IED Group campuses:Marisol ArreolaVideo Design, IED Roma;Alexandra BarkovaGraphic Design, IED Barcelona;Elisabetta BoffiFashion Design, IED Firenze;Alessia BoldriniFashion Stylist, IED Firenze;Emma BrondiIllustration, IED Firenze;Maria Chiara Delli Santi,Sound Design, IED Milano;Luca DessiFashion Design, IED Torino;Asia Di BiccariFashion Stylist, IED Milano;Alejandro DominguezGraphic Design, IED Madrid;Raffaella FaizulinaFashion Design, IED Milano;Martina GiustiInterior Design, IED Cagliari;Lara JagoicTextile Design, Accademia di Como Aldo Galli;Alberto MichisantiFashion Stylist, IED Milano;Matteo RosadiPhotos, IED Rome;Luca TomeiFashion Design, IED Roma;Geo VergnanoPhotos, IED Torino;Joane ZabalaFashion Design, IED Kunsthal Bilbao.
Photos by Stefano Casatti and Cristina Andolcetti
The exhibition space was assembledseven projects, completed in twoagaintwo projects each. Athe sound is integrated with all the piecescombining their various themes into a sonic score that filled the exhibition space. Angraphic design projectit has also integrated functions into a coherent, modular archive with the potential to be expanded over time. They create thematic resonances that connect research related to fashion with the visual languages of images, video, drawings, sound and graphics.
Standing between installation and programming functionality, Pathos Formulas presents itself asa hybrid device combining archive, collage and publication. In line with the IED teaching method, the focus is on process. Collaboration becomes an integral part of the project, producing narratives where historical and speculative perspectives overlap and transform.