Heloísa Crocco and Normélio

I got to know Heloísa Crocco and her work through Adélia Borges, whom I met the day before I left to Porto Alegre. I was going to stay in a hotel there, but Adélia called Heloísa to ask if her “wooden box” studio on the outskirts of Porto Alegre, by the Guaíba river, would be free the next 2 days. This is where she welcomes friends, artists and curators there as a sort of informal artists’ residence. Lucky for me, it was free.

Crocco's studio gorgeous sleeping quarters

Heloísa is trained as an artist, but has been working as a designer for many years. Most of her time is dedicated to the design of surface patterns and decorative panels, where she explores wood texture elements in varying levels of abstraction, namely in her own line of decorative ceramics at Tok&Stok. She is also a pioneer in developing community-based design and craft projects, and this was what interested me most in meeting her.

Heloísa is a co-founder of Piracema Design Lab, a research project dedicated to “form in Brazilian culture” initiated by a multidisciplinary 7-person team: herself, photographer Fabio del Re, artist and professor José Alberto Nemer, twin sisters and architects/designers Lui Lo Pomo and Tina Azevedo Moura, Renato Imbroisi and Marcelo Drummond. I met some of the other members later in my trip.

Image taken from a Piracema Design Lab presentation

Piracema is seen as one of the most consistent and respected projects in this field; through its “Faber” project, it has been instructing professionals (artists, designers, craftsmen) to work in projects that bring together design and craft. This is thus not a one-hit-wonder project where a group of designers goes to a remote community and teaches people how to improve their craft through design. In a way it’s also about that, but this 1-year program is mostly about providing the knowledge and tools to understand both the market (in its potential and limitations) and the communities these professionals will work with in the long run.

Through its scientific base and multidisciplinary approach, Piracema avoids the empirical methods and unilateralism of other, similar projects. Allowing the artisan to be sovereign over its work and authorship, it wishes to cultivate the product of his or her work as a materialization of a cultural heritage, observed in its context and anthropological complexity.

Jalapão (image from the rosenbaum® blog)

Mainly with the support of Sebrae, Piracema has developed community projects in several states, the last of which took place this July in Jalapão, a landlocked plateau region in the state of Tocantins. During the time I spent with Heloísa in Porto Alegre the experience of being in that remote place was still very fresh in her mind. We talked a lot about what happens when a team of designers goes to places like these: how the community they meet reacts, how much they learn from one another and how significant the impact of the experience is on both.

The day after I arrived we (Heloísa, her son Thomaz, Tatiana and myself) went up to Bento Gonçalves for the first day of the Casa Brasil Design fair. We got there just as Marcelo Rosenbaum was finishing his talk, right on time for him to join us for lunch. Rosenbaum had been the invited designer for Piracema’s Jalapão project, and this was the first they had reunited after the experience.

Heloísa, Thomaz and Marcelo ('s tatooed arm).

Over what was a remarkably northern Italian lunch near Bento Gonçalves, they shared many stories from those unforgettable ten or so days working with local people and capim dourado. This tall plant, whose naturally golden stem is used to make a myriad of objects, was the material of choice for this project. Also at the table was Ademir Bueno, design manager at Tok&Stok, who had been following this and other Piracema projects closely, as some of the resulting products find their way to its nationwide network of stores. You can see some photos of the project’s team and results on Rosenbaum’s blog or on Tok&Stok’s website.

Normélio's stuff

On our 2-hour car journey back from Bento to Porto Alegre, we bought bergamot oranges by the roadside, and as we passed the village of São Sebastião do Caí, Heloísa made sure she stopped at her friend Normélio’s to say hi. He welcomed us in the kitchen of his amazing wooden house for tea. Normélio collects and restores antique German colony furniture and surrounds himself of decade-, in some case century-old, artifacts that in this part of Brazil don’t feel even particularly exotic.

Normélio's Tea

Having turned 60 this year, Heloísa told me she feels it’s now time for her to go back to her own work and “pass on the torch”. She wishes Piracema to evolve as a project, to involve younger people and adapt to future challenges. Judging from her contagious enthusiasm and energy, but also Piracema’s talented team and track record, I have no doubt the project will remain as relevant and inspiring as it is now.

Shortly after I arrived in Recife, Patrícia Amorim and her boyfriend Raul Aguiar took me to Olinda for lunch and for the view. Patrícia is the main reason I actually came here: she wrote me an email on the day I left Lisbon for São Paulo, where she said she has been writing on design for newspapers and magazines here in Pernambuco, wrote her master dissertation on how design has been featured in 5 years of the Veja magazine, helped out Adélia Borges on her curation for the “Fronteiras: Design Brasileiro Hoje” exhibition and – if all that wasn’t enough – is thinking on applying for the D-Crit programme. I immediately considered adding Recife to my itinerary just to talk to her and learn more about all the things she mentioned.

And it was totally worth it. Patrícia and Raul (who runs a design and illustration studio with his brother) not only welcomed me into their flat, but were great guides around Recife. They’re both quite well connected in the city, and Patrícia managed to arrange the two meetings/interviews that later took place – and also walks around the centre and Olinda, a beach break at Praia da Boa Viagem (where I managed to avoid the sharks) and plenty of great local food and drinks.

Tatiana Sperhacke and her husband Raul Krebs picked me up at the Porto Alegre airport this morning, and we went straight to the Fundação Iberê Camargo for lunch. Álvaro Siza‘s only second (thanks Paulo Moreira for the correction!) building in South America is a true architectural gem – despite the silly toilet symbols his clients still let him get away with. Walking along its narrow corridors and spacious halls on a sunny, crisp day like today made the experience even grander.

Tatiana (found the photo above, with me and Raul are reflected on the museum’s glass front) is a graphic and product designer, SVA – MFA Designer as author – alumna an a true “gaúcha”. Over lunch and later in her studio we talked about her work in New York and in Porto Alegre, teaching, her own 2D and 3D designs, collective workspaces, references…

In between we came to Heloísa Crocco‘s “wooden box” studio on the outskirts of Porto Alegre by the Guaíba river, where I left my suitcase and we had Guaraná with Heloísa. I’m now back here, it’s about 10ºc/50ºF and I can see the lights on the other side of the river from the balcony windows – this i a truly special place run by a very special person. Tomorrow morning the three of us are leaving for Bento Gonçalves for the first day of Casa Brasil Design.

Thank you Zoë Melo for introducing me to Tatiana (and also to Rodrigo Almeida, and to other people I will meet along the way…) and to Adélia Borges for calling Heloísa right on time.

I spent the better part of my day with three amazing women.
First, design journalist and curator and former director of Museu da Casa Brasileira Adélia Borges, who has been a terrific guiding hand for me from the very first moment, welcomed me into her house/office in Vila Madalena for a great lunch and conversation. I forgot to take a photo of Adélia, but I will meet her again in Bento Gonçalves and also on the 11th here in São Paulo – more news on that later.

Just as I left Adélia’s street I got a call from Daniela Pizetta, who I got in touch before coming to Brazil through design journalist and curator Aric Chen. She picked me up on the corner and we drove to her husband’s Bike Shop. Cris runs one of the few licenced Harley Davidson workshops in Brazil, and he started our chat there. Then we walked up to the Sunset spot in Vila Beatriz, where we arrived just after the sun set. And today was the first day I actually saw São Paulo’s blue sky… We went back to their place and continued talking over pizza about Daniela’s experience with Brazilian product design, design development and export, in what was a remarkably insightful take into the industry, its achievements but also its shortcomings over the past years.

Then I got a taxi – with the greatest, most politically opinionated cab driver I’ve ever met – to Morumbi, where I met Flávia Pagotti Silva. Flávia had a really busy day, and is having a very busy week of exciting new projects and commissions, so we could only talk from 8pm. Her cool, soon to be 4-year old son Pedro paid us company throughout the talk/interview, repeatedly attempting to fly over the couch.