It was a pleasure to speak with Jan Boelen, the director of Z33, and Johanna Agerman Ross, the editor of Disegno, at the Z33/DAMn Magazine debate series at Palazzo Clerici during this year's Salone del Mobile. The debate marks one step in the evolution of Z33 from a gallery into a centre for research.


Before the debate, I was asked to write a small text in order to provoke a discussion on the relationship between the Salone and the field of design criticism. I focused on the ambivalent role of the journalist as someone who both produces a printed product and creates an environment of opinion about the design products on display. Such a position inevitably creates an obstacle course where ethics and finance intertwine to a dizzying degree.

From her position as a founder and editor of a biannual printed magazine as well as website, Johanna offered a much more complex perspective on the way design journalism works within its own codes and systems, reacting to overlapping pressures from the needs of readers, designers, advertisers, and writers themselves.


We also discussed the need to be an informed and alert reader when dealing with mixed-tactics platforms like Dezeen, as shown in my recent lecture, "The Critical Format".

Watch the entire debate here: