The Art of Design Issue 45 2020 | Page 66

66 SIAMO TUTTI UNO COLLECTION DESIGNED BY ROBERTA MARI AND SILVIA ZYLBERMAN PIO FOR CARPET EDITION ‘They call us poor and primitive, but we are not poor nor primitive. Our wisdom is not useless. It is the wisdom of the Earth’. The words of Davi Kopenawa, spokesperson for the Yanomami people and defender of environmental and Indigenous people’s rights, help to illustrate an extraordinary project conceived from the collaboration between Carpet Edition and Roberta Mari with Silvia Zylberman Pio. Siamo tutti uno (translate is We are all one) is a collection of rugs conceived to give a voice to indigenous people, now also threatened by the health emergency, but always subjected to violent genocide, slavery and racism in the name of ‘progress’ and civilization. With their sustainable lifestyle, they are the best custodians of the natural world; defending their rights is therefore also the best and most effective way to protect the environment and biodiversity. Roberta Mari (Milanese of Tuscan origin) and Silvia Zylberman Pio (Polish-Brazilian), share cultural fusion and the love of integration among styles and different languages, and they were able to design a collection of surprising visual impact, capable of communicating an emotion and telling a story.