Objetos da Floresta

Objetos da Floresta
Exhibition Identity

What can designers learn from the more sustainable methods and tools of the indigenous people of the Amazon? This is what Andrea Bandoni explored in her project ‘Objetos da Floresta/Objects of the Forest’ for which we designed the exhibition identity and all promotional materials.

TAKE, USE AND REUSE

“Imagine a place where you can just take, use and reuse whatever you need in a sustainable and ecologically responsible manner” is how the Brazilian designer Andrea Bandoni introduces her project. “A place where you have the ability to pick ‘objects’ from a tree, or to take ‘objects’ out of an animal.”

Industrial exploitation of natural resources prospers in current day Brazil. But in far corners of the country, people still engage in a symbiotic relationship with the forest they live in. Nature is a “source of inspiration or concern”, Bandoni notes. In 2012, she visited remote Amazonian villages and communities to observe how the indigenous people of Brazil use and produce objects and tools with the help of the immediate nature that surrounds them. Her findings, presented in two exhibitions and reflected on in a series of workshops, should serve as a source of inspiration to contemporary design and production. They encourage a more responsible relationship with nature.

PRINTED MATTER

Posters, flyers and banners were set out to promote the exhibitions in Sao Paulo and Recife as well as the various workshops. As the central visual element mysterious collages combine the objects of the forest into new fantastical ones. Like an entanglement of branches and leaves, the typographic elements around the collages interweave and interlace.

Working simply with what is already naturally available the printed matter was produced at a small offset printer in Sao Paulo. The formal aspects of the design are thus inherently formed by the local means of production. One-colour print-runs. Limited colours. A set selection of papers. A printed outcome that is a bit more rough around the edges. The custom monospace typeface, designed based on the typewriter-font Courier, features enlarged counters to improve legibility for this more raw way of printing.

EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

Designed and edited by us, a catalogue documents Bandoni’s Amazonian journeys and discoveries and features an essay by design researcher Vanessa Grossmann. As the reader travels through the book changes of paper and colour mark out the different sections and chapters. The printing ink alternates with each object, from black to red to blue and back again.

Just like the flyers and posters, the catalogue was produced at a local print shop. It is a humble object made with the everyday means that are readily available in the thicket of the city.