Anthony Burrill: Mesa & Cadeira Workshop

Next month myself and Alex head out to São Paulo to run a six day workshop with Mesa & Cadeira. Following Andy Cameron and Anthony Burrill we thought we’d get a heads up on what we can expect so caught up with Anthony who has recently returned from the Brazilian city.

Morning Anthony, you’ve recently got back from Brazil, tell us more…

I was invited to lead a workshop in São Paulo by Mesa & Cadeira, a new educational project created by Barbara Soalheiro and Francesca Wade.

How did the workshop work, what were you aiming to achieve?

The workshop has a simple formula, a guest leader works with a small group of design professionals on a single brief over six evenings. The brief for our workshop developed out of group discussion on the first evening. We developed a series of twelve text based posters to broadly represent the life philosophy of the workshop members. The phrases came out of lively discussion about how we all approach life and work. The conversation got quite deep, and at some points very funny. The group worked and played together beautifully, we embraced the opportunity to work together freely on an open and quite personal project. On the final evening we held an exhibition of the posters in the gallery space where the workshop had taken place. The workshop had a great energy, the outcome was a great collection of positive phrases in both English and Portuguese.

Where can we see more?

The results of the workshop will be shown at Kemistry Gallery in London in July. We plan to develop the work into a large scale installation in the gallery, there will also be documentation of the workshop and we will print an edition of the posters that will be available to buy. We will also be holding a seminar talking about the process of Mesa & Cadeira and my experiences in São Paulo.

Tell us more about Sao Paulo, was it what you were expecting?

The city is incredible, it is a huge, incredibly busy, endlessly inspiring place. I wasn’t sure what to expect, I went hoping it would be fun. I wasn’t disappointed!

What’s the one thing you’d recommend to anyone heading to the city?

Go to the chintzy seventies piano bar at the top of the forty six floor Edificio Italia for a breathtaking view of the city while sipping champagne listening to Sergio Mendes.

Alex and myself are in running our workshop on curation from 3–8 May in São Paulo, for more details check the website.