Design as contamination between arts and knowledge: The case of Euromedsys

Abstract

Because the contamination and overlap between design, craft and art generate innovative results in terms of new products, processes, and modes of behaviour, it is necessary that each of these disciplines restrict itself to its own field. The transfer between knowledge and creative skills must take place in a respectful process of reciprocal confrontation, in which expertise and behaviour are exchanged between equals. The skills of each one should not cross over into a field occupied by the other, but should instead be transferred within this process of confrontation in which only the discipline of industrial design, thanks to its inherent nature as process, can interpret and redirect them towards new modes of behaviour, products, and scenarios. In that sense, and in terms of processes and products, the Euromedsys project discussed here, born out of an intersection-interaction between different cultures united by a common Mediterranean matrix, can boast of having attained original outcomes thanks to the ability of the actors taking part - designers, artist-craftsmen, firms - to achieve fruitful exchanges of expertise and skills.

Key words: Euro-Mediterranean, knowledge, community of practice, contamination.