Daydreaming (The Future I remember)

In this future, designers are not creators of objects but caretakers of knowledge, translators between different ways of living, and advocates of cultural and ecological diversity. As I move through my dream, I begin to recognise fragments of it in my own past: projects, encounters, and journeys that now appear as early signals of a different future already taking shape. 

Through works such as Cross Cultural Chairs, the Institute for Postnatural Studies, and collaborations across Sicily and the rest of the world, the lecture explores how design can become a practice of attention rather than production. Each project is presented not as a finished outcome, but as a process of listening and learning. Together, they suggest an alternative role for design: not to invent the future from scratch, but to decide what to preserve and protect. The dream, ultimately, becomes a lens through which to understand a body of work shaped by curiosity, cultural exchange, ecology, and the belief that every design decision is a small vote for the kind of world we want to inhabit. 

Matteo Guarnaccia (he/him) [1993] is a Sicilian freelance art director and designer whose practice spans branding, visual narratives, creative strategy, and editorial formats. Based between Sicily and New York, his work moves between identity systems and narrative-driven projects, often informed by an anthropological approach to design. He is the founder of Cross Cultural Chairs, a long-term research project exploring the relationship between objects, culture and body, developed into an award-winning publication (Laus Prize, 2022) and an internationally exhibited project. In 2020, he co-founded the Institute for Postnatural Studies, a platform for artistic experimentation and critical research investigating the intersection of nature and culture. He thinks that design should give more to the people rather than expect something in return.