Giulia del Gobbo

(she/her) is an Italian interdisciplinary designer and curator based between Italy and The Netherlands. Her work is developed at the intersection of critical design, embodied and curatorial practices, with a particular interest in creating performative open-source spaces.




  1. Projects 
  2. Writings
  3. Curation


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©2024

When Voice Moves Mountains



Connecting geological and human time, When Voice Moves Mountains subverts the use of metal pipes from the TABOO Faultline Observatory in the region Marche, Italy. If in this earthquake-prone region they act as extractive elements, in this sound installation they evolve as sensible mediators of sonic data. Visitors can interact with the pipes to perceive vocal acts and underground frequencies as sculpting agents of a space and to sense vibrations through one’s entire body.

MA Project at Design Academy Eindoven, Critical Inquiry Lab, Cum Laude, 2024.
Project exhibited at Microtuin during Dutch Design Week 2024.
Pictures by Annie Howarth.





The body in the world of design
Interactive objects to deconstruct gender based violence



The body in the world of design; interactive objects to deconstruct gender based violence is a project that works with choreographies of bodies, experimenting with how they act and react through the design of objects and spaces in order to lay the foundations of conviviality and care, empathy and mutual attention between bodies. Initially conceived for the Italian CAM centres (Listening Centres for Violent Men), in this work activities and interactive objects intertwine in a one-day workshop divided into three moments: Balance, Contact and Common Creation.

BA Project Università degli Studi di Ferrara, Industrial Product Design, 110/110 L, 2021.
Project exhibited at BASE during Milan Design Week 2024.
Pictures by Nicola Malossi.




Islands are not forever



Islands are not forever takes inspiration from Gilles Deleuze’s quote in his text Desert Islands: “Humans can live on an island only by forgetting what an island represents”. It bloomed from a discussion about what does it mean to be on an island, about distances and how to shorten them. We talked also about communication, about the attempts of reconstructing something from its ruins and about landscapes carved on the surfaces of things.

Project developed in Eindhoven 2023, in the shapes of short video essay, participative performance and object based installation in collaboration with Marie Tirard and Yannis Androulakis. You can check the video on Vimeo.  





Welcome back home, water



In Mauzé-sur-le-Mignon, a city in western France near the marshlands of Marais Poitevin, lies the protected area Natura 2000. Just one kilometre away, the government is working on the construction of Mega Bassine SEV17, a massive water basin for irrigation.  The core of this work is the design of a fountain that serves as a metaphorical deconstruction of the current infrastructure and aims to re-introduce water back to its natural cycle whilst promoting democratic water management and educating about ecosystem dynamics. 

Critically reflecting upon existing knowledges around water and positioning the role of design in-between technology, policies, science, and artistic practices, this projects turns out to be a collaboration with IABR International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam 2023. Check Thirst Website to have more info on the project.





MEDA



The project MEDA, a sea bell tower with a kinetic sculpture created by Oliviero Fiorenzi, has inhabited the sea of Ancona for a period of about four months, kicking off a season of cultural events. During the workshop, I learned how to work with the  materials, go through them and touch the tension and to contextualize works of art based on their sorrounding. Can nature itself make the artwork? What is a sea bell tower? Is it a home or a cage? What is its language? What does it feed?  Who inhabits it? How can people reach it?

This project is the result of the Workshop 2 SEA led by artist Edoardo Tresoldi in 2021 in Ancona.
Pictures by YAC.





Body Scans



Body Scans is the project that put me back in touch with myself. For the first part of this work, I analyzed my body and its movements in everyday actions, in relation to objects and space, letting my body produce the (de)signs. I put my body to the test, making it interact with different objects, which I extracted from their context of use. I investigated their infinite potentialities (affordances), in order to have a new point of view and break the imposed conventions. It was interesting to see how a “pair of shoes” defined a different way of walking, deforming body and objects. We shape our environment and thereafter it shapes us back.

Project selected in 2020 among the Best of 20 of the Hoschule HFT Stuttgart.





Still Alive



A series of installations from 2020 on the artistic genre of Still life to create, with personal objects and my own body, an urban storytelling. In a place far away from home, Stuttgart, I wanted to bring with me my beloved objects and share sensorial experiences, emotions, memories with people. I showed that each object was a piece of my (inner) home. Especially in the last works, it was interesting to see my objects side by side with those of other people, digging deep into the lives of other  to learn about their interests and stories. The more my objects came into contact with other people’s objects, the more I could see them having conversations. I realized that my objects are not dead, they are not still. They are still alive and they make me feel alive.
Project published on Corporeal Architecture Channel.