The Crit #31: Liliana Ovalle
Welcome to The Crit, a podcast from Disegno where designers look back in judgement on their own careers.
For those new to the show, each fortnight Disegno’s editor-in-chief Oli Stratford invites a leading designer to Kef Music Gallery to review their own work. Our guest reveals what worked best; what failed; what pushed their career to new heights; what feedback most shaped their practice; and what they feel needs to be redesigned.
At the end of each episode, to complete their crit, they’ll be asked to give themselves a grade for their career to date: fail, pass, commendation or distinction.
It’s a design-school crit, delivered every fortnight! Subscribe to the show here, or sign up wherever you get your podcasts from.
Our thirty-first guest on The Crit is Liliana Ovalle, accompanied by show host Oli Stratford.
Episode #31: Liliana Ovalle
Liliana Ovalle is a London-based designer and researcher whose work often explores different making cultures and the social status of design objects.
Having trained at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and London’s Royal College of Art, Ovalle founded her own design studio in 2006. Her work is typically executed in collaboration with different artisans, such as her series of red clay vessels designed to resemble Mexcio City’s sinkholes, which were made through a cultural exchange with Cooperativa 1050° in Oaxaca.
Research is a cornerstone of Ovalle’s practice, and she is currently pursuing a PhD in design at Goldsmiths exploring how designers can respectfully collaborate with indigenous craftspeople in Mexico, alongside her role creating prototypes that investigate new ideas about living with technology for Northumbria University’s Interaction Design Studio.
During her crit, Ovalle talked about balancing commercial design work with research, learning the limitations of working with craft processes, and her dream of making altars for the home.
Show Notes: Liliana Ovalle
Best design: Sinkhole Vessels
Worst design: Encuentros bar set
Most successful design: Fragment of a Staircase
Most impactful feedback: Curator Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher saying she creates designs that look playful but are actually quite serious, similar to the work of designer Shiro kuramata
Dream design: Corner altars for the home
This episode of The Crit was recorded at KEF Music Gallery London.
The Crit’s graphics were created by Leonhard Rothmoser.
The Crit’s music was created by Yuri Suzuki and Team Suzuki.