Warmer Designs for a Cooler Planet

Within the framework of Helsinki Design Week 2025, and a as a part of the Designs for a Cooler Planet programme, S.U.R organizes Warmer Designs for a Cooler Planet; an intimate conversation exploring decolonial design possibilities that center closeness and warmth to reimagine futures.

Friends, artists and designers Alejandra Alarcón, Leonardo Hidalgo, and Paola Jalili gather in conversation with S.U.R to share how their practices intersect with questions of place, care, and resourcefulness.

Rooted in Latin American perspectives and shaped by life and work in Helsinki, each of their practices explores the potential of Design beyond products—through food, publishing, craft, textiles, and graphic design. From Alejandra’s approach to food as a relational and political act, to Paola’s critical publishing methods, and Leonardo’s research-driven practice, we’ll explore how design can be a tool for connecting with where we come from and where we are now.

The conversation, held in English, will reflect on how locality and collaboration shape their work, and how smaller-scale, non-industrial design can offer ways of thinking and doing that are responsive and reflective. We will share a cake made by Alejandra, and tea ♡.
 
Date and time︎︎︎ 11.09.2025, 17:00-19:00 hs
Location + address of the event︎︎︎ Studio Falda, Hämeentie 26, Helsinki 00530

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Alejandra Alarcón (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist and designer working at the intersection of food and art. Grounded in a decolonial and ecofeminist approach to knowledge production, her interest in (food) sustainability—the seasonality of things, non-human collaborations—is deeply tied to embodied practices such as walking, foraging, cooking, and digesting. Alarcón uses cake as a medium to create Edible Landscapes—sensorially engaging sculptures layered with different flavours. Rooted in a location and its context, these often take the form of sweet treats meant to be shared and devoured communally.

https://alealarcon.com/
@al.alarcon @edible__landscapes



Leonardo Hidalgo Uribe (he/him) is a textile designer and doctoral candidate in the Department of Design at Aalto University. His research explores biocolours and dyeing practices from a territorial perspective, focusing on the intersections between local ecological knowledge and colour design. Leonardo has conducted fieldwork in Finland, Colombia, and Japan, employing ethnographic and practice-led research methods to explore human-environment relationships in dyeing practices. His work experiments with audiovisual storytelling by overlapping video, sound, and photography with the creation of local colour libraries crafted with bio-based dyes. Leonardo has a background in weaving, dyeing, and collection coordination, and is interested in navigating the relationships between environments, materials, and colour through textile design and ethnography.

@leohidalgo_



Paola Jalili (she/her) is an artist-publisher and cultural worker based in Helsinki. In 2021, she started Ei Mainoksia, Kiitos!, an independent art publishing initiative that aims to experiment with unconventional and sustainable book formats, and to highlight the time and labor behind the act of publishing. She is part of Feminist Culture House, a curatorial and editorial platform that produces tools for more equitable collaborations within the arts. In her visual arts practice, Paola reflects on the intersections between labor, gender, and the contemporary workplace through the project Office Aesthetics.

@paolajalili @ei_mainoksia_kiitos

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