PAROLA PROGETTO @SALOTTO.NYC: interview with Paolo Ferrarini

For about 7 years, Paolo Ferrarini, has been hosting Parola Progetto, which he defines as “a podcast of dialogues with people who live by design, where design in all its forms is told, without objects and images, only through words.
In the 58 episodes currently available, several prominent figures, not only from design but also from other creative fields, have taken turns at the microphone. At the end of October “Parola progetto” reached an important achievement, 3 live episodes (in English) in New York at “Salotto”, the 'hub of production and cultural research founded by Italian creatives, with guests: Paola Antonelli (Design curator at MOMA) , Debbie Millman, (Designer) and Massimiliano Gioni (Curator and creative director of the New Museum). For the occasion we asked Paolo three questions.



Fuorisalone: How did the idea of telling about design without showing it come about?
With my job as a journalist, I often meet exceptional people. Sometimes the exchanges or interviews become real chats, or life stories, or even masterclasses. And it's a shame to lose these beautiful words. Then when we write, for reasons of space we are always forced to cut, summarize and select. I was looking for ways to give as much space as possible to these ideas, so the podcast seemed like a good idea for a quality long form. I started in early 2018, when podcasts in Italy were still few, and design podcasts almost nonexistent. I did not have the means to make a video podcast, so I made a virtue of necessity, eliminating any form of images. I also liked to give my guests a “design limit,” to create a situation dear to design, where obstacles only push creativity. So Parola Progetto “tells about design in all its forms, without objects and images, only through words.”

Fuorisalone: Recommend us three episodes to start with, for those who have never listened to your podcast, the ones that best represent your idea of “Parola Progetto".
Paolo Ferrarini: I would start with the first one, the one with Giorgia Lupi, which was beautiful despite the bad audio quality (I still hadn't figured out how to use a good microphone...). A recent episode that impressed me a lot is the one with Formafantasma, deep, generous and very clear. The dialogue with Angelo Rinaldi is a lesson in design and life that I would listen to again a thousand times. The meeting with Leonardo Sonnoli turned into a real project, as during that chat, on sketchbook the Parola Progetto logo was born. But how does one choose? Each episode hides memories, meetings, relationships, discoveries, sometimes months and months (if not even years!) of mutual pursuits. And it also happened to move us.

Fuorisalone: Parola Progetto has also become a live talk on many occasions, what is the future of the project and if you will, of podcasts in general, in your opinion?
Parola Progetto is growing and becoming synonymous with real dialogues, with quality and with people. Basically it is a place to create real relationships, between ideas and between people. Just think that during Covid, while podcasts were growing like mushrooms, Parola Progetto almost disappeared. I couldn't meet the guests in person and it didn't make sense to me. To this day, almost all meetings are in person, and I have never enjoyed connecting remotely. As sophisticated as technology can be, it is never the same as sitting at a table in front of a microphone. In addition to the talks “powered by Parola Progetto,” nowadays I really enjoy having an audience around me, reacting and participating.That was the case this year in Rome but also in New York, where the three evenings at Salotto were a hard to forget experience.

Parola Progetto can be heard on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Audible.
The episode with guest Paola Antonelli is already available, while the others from the New York “Living Room” will be released in the coming weeks.