Neomateria: Designing for Endowing Matter with Agentivity

The contribution starting point is the two-days “Green Studies” seminar (13 and 14 June 2022), organised by the doctoral students of the XXXVII cycle of Università Iuav di Venezia belonging to the PON Program “Research and Innovation” 2014–2020, dealing with innovation and green issues. Conceived to reflect on the relationship between design and sustainability, it developed from the multidisciplinary interpretation of four research trajectories: #(im)permanenza, #porosità, #neomateria, #(s)vincoli. Specifically, this article investigates the concept underlying the term #neomateria, through a theoretical investigation that addresses the “material turn” within Cultural Studies and Design Studies, supporting the three specific research areas of the authors involved: Clizia Moradei in fashion, Michele De Chirico in design, and Jacopo Baldelli in construction. From this multi-handed exploration it emerges how sustainability does not only concern a productive issue but also a cultural one, as it invites us to review both the way we design and the way we produce, as well as the way we relate and use the products—how we actually make experience of them. In addition, it demonstrates how the need identified for a return to materiality—a materiality imbued with agential capability—turns into varied possibilities offered by a shared experimental paradigm, animated by a multidisciplinary material driven approach.