Ó la ri Loulé Collection | Astolfi x Passa Ao Futuro

Architect, artist, and visionary storyteller Joana Astolfi has an eye for the contemporary and a passion for artisanal craft. Her projects, from art installations to interiors to window displays, have a pared back elegance, a liberated playfulness, and the mark of the human hand. Seeing craft as the ultimate luxury, she often incorporates artisanal craft into her projects, sourcing from some of Portugal’s most skilled craftspeople. This year, non-profit organisation Passa Ao Futuro invited her to take part in their Plant Based Design Residency, where she was able to fully immerse herself in a creative exchange, over two weeks, with craftswoman Sónia Mendez, specialising in palm basket weaving, as well as her daughter, Susana Mendez, skilled in textiles. Together, they created modern solutions for generations-old crafts, while forging meaningful relationships that will endure well into the future.

As part of their ongoing mission to ensure a future for traditional Portuguese crafts, Passa Ao Futuro organised five residencies for their Plant Based Design Residency this year, each placing one contemporary designer in partnership with one Portuguese basket weaver, with the aim of finding innovative design solutions for generations-old crafts. The residencies, organised in the context of the Made In Platform for Contemporary Crafts & Design project, fostered a true knowledge share, where each collaborator learned from and augmented the skills of the other. For two weeks, Joana collaborated with Sónia at the residency, living and working at Loulé Criativo, the programme’s hosting partner. She was kind enough to share her experience with us, to give us greater insight into the programme, the creation of her product collection, and the unexpected gifts that came from her time there.

“For me, [the experience] was very emotional, very profound, and it was something that I did for me. To go deeper inside me, to connect more deeply with craft and create with the artisan. I would love to do more of that,” Joana says.
“[Passa Ao Futuro is] a really unique foundation and it is a very strong voice for the crafts and for the artisans. And we needed that in Portugal because we have incredible hand labour with crafts, but we didn’t have anyone or any association with intelligent, cultured, big-vision, travelled people like Astrid and Fatima [Durkee, co-founder] to represent these people and to organise events, exhibitions, residencies, to dynamise all the artists that work in these fields. I very much admire their work, their approach and their humbleness. The lack of greed. Love is the driving force, passion. And that’s always beautiful. For me, that’s what we’ve got to go for with arts. Creativity is about passion. And about courage. They had a lot of courage to set it up and to still be going,” Joana says.