I love a good, vigorous chat. Ask me something provocative and I’ll get you a memorable quote.
“Not talent, genius!” My favorite line from Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which is what I was channeling after a couple of espressos in Lisbon with my long-time acquaintance Luis De Oliveira. Seriously though, I am asked to contribute to podcasts somewhat frequently, and this is one of my personal favorites from this past year. Podcast conversations are like tennis: one is only as good as the person one is playing with.
Tete-a-Tete for the Design Cognescenti
The bar is high at A Place to Talk — bring your A-game and be ready to volley. His audience is the global design cognescenti, the people who make and furnish the buildings and homes we read about in the glossy magazines, the people who are winning the design prizes, the people who are thinking deeply about culture and design’s responsibility today. Thus it was an honor to be brought in for this tete-a-tete.
We Are Part of a Wave of Movements
At one point I say, “We are a movement,” which is true. What is happening today around the globe is a movement with people our age. What I left out, was that I am not the high priest of it. AGEIST happened to be at the right place at the right time 5 years ago when we started looking into this and no one else was. The other part is that ours is but one of a huge range of movements happening around the world as we swim in today’s ocean of trends and counter-trends.
Conversations Get Us Out of Our Silos
The design industry, like the fashion industry and the travel industry, is thinking about issues such as its carbon footprint, sustainable materials, minimal packaging waste —themes that are top of mind today which were not a few years ago. The world is changing all around us, and it is by having the sort of conversation that I had with Luis here that we get out of our silos, that we have people ask what we are doing and if it really is the right thing to do.
