Time-Travel with Cristina Celestino
“Technology? It’s just the means, not the final goal”
Cristina Celestino: acknowledged as one of the smartest minds of contemporary design, her creativity is constantly spurred by curiosity. Indeed, being curious is what she defines as “the positive side” of any project she works on: it helps her look beyond difficulties and raises her expectations when passing from designs to prototypes. Curiosity also makes her feel free to explore past and future in their continuous coexistence between old and new. It is what makes her works the highest artistic expression embodying the combination of retro and avantgarde styles.
Slide to watch some works | Courtesy of Cristina Celestino
Cristina, what is your ideal fusion of future and past?
Past and present always coexist in the creative process leading to the search for future or something new. I really like this quote from Nanda Vigo: “Future exists in the past and they’re both part of everything”. There is always more than one reference in my projects, and all of them are reinterpreted instead of being just used as referring points. They often belong to different worlds: it might be the history of architecture, jewellery, nature. Their synthesis always passes through an abstract phase in which geometries, patterns, volumes and traditional typologies are redesigned (this is what a designer really does). I aim at getting to a final result coming from a fusion or hybridization that sums up the whole research, sources the references and conveys a contemporary message.
One of your recent projects is The Pink Closet, Palazzo Avino’s boutique in the Amalfi Coast, which has been called “a hymn to beauty”. What’s your idea of beauty?
Beauty involves time: you need time to create it and make it understandable. It also implies a lot of care: you need to take care of yourself as well as the others, who will enjoy a pleasure which is not an end in itself.
Slide to watch some works| Courtesy of Cristina Celestino
Evolution: does this word have a positive meaning? Or a negative one?
I am very optimistic about the future and I don’t look nostalgically at the past. Evolution brings with itself the adaptation to contemporaneity, which is incredibly positive.
READ THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW IN THE OCTOBER ISSUE
words Federica Caiazzo
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