The Substance of Mayrit ◯ In Conversation with Miguel Leiro 

30. There is one light of the sun, though it is interrupted by walls, mountains, and other things infinite. There is one common substance, though it is distributed among countless bodies which have their several qualities. There is one soul, though it is distributed among infinite natures and individual circumscriptions [or individuals]. There is one intelligent soul, though it seems to be divided.

– Long, George. The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. United Kingdom, Ginn, 1893. 

In a world of infinite circumstances, few believe in the multiplicity of form – or seek to philosophize concepts of matter that have been routinely displaced of their mystery. Miguel Leiro is amongst those who walk in the passage of the sacred and the profane, a man of contemporary dimensions. An unexpected curatorial pursuit and background as a designer has led him to found Mayrit Bienal in Madrid. As a forthcoming experimental platform in its third edition for design, architecture, and contemporary art, Mayrit Bienal envelops the city’s emerging voices.

In anticipation of the event in Madrid, we met in Piraeus, a neighborhood that defined my earliest years in Greece as the place where my father was born and raised. Our first destination was to see the inlaid eyes of the bronze statue of the Piraeus Athena from the fourth century BCE – whose lashes of sliced bronze still near the profound. Within three hours, I began to understand how Leiro became Leiro, and Mayrit the movement it encompasses, all through an inquiry into identity and passion that are usually left unsaid. 

Katerina Papanikolopoulos: How do you bring Galicia with you throughout your life? 

Miguel Leiro: The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve learned to appreciate the intricacies and the special things about having this more regional side. I'm still learning how to understand this culture, be more participant of it, and to also disseminate it.

Katerina Papanikolopoulos: Is this your first time in Athens? 

Miguel Leiro: My only time in Greece was when I was eight years old, and I went to Mount Olympus with my grandmother, and all the years reading the country’s mythologies (from a distance). 

Papanikolopoulos: And how do you renew these mythologies? As a designer, when you look at the draping of the cloth laden in bronze near the feet, how would you reflect that detail in your design process? 

Leiro: Well, I guess, in that sense… I'm very privileged to be the son of a sculptor. So when I look at sculpture, that perspective gives you a different eye, a different sort of sensibility towards understanding form and movement and these concepts that can be very abstract now – understood from the art world. But the design world also applies a lot of abstract concepts to the development of a design object or a design project. And there are a lot of abstract concepts that come into play when thinking about a project. And art has this ability to be a direct example of how you can take an abstract emotion or an abstract idea, apply it and materialize it and then have that evoke something, right? And in design, we have to think about the functionality of things, but the evocability of something is also very important. And this is done through more artistic means in terms of the mindset of a designer. Learning to appreciate more classical artworks takes us to a very primal sense of understanding what we as Europeans, at least from our perspective, deem beautiful and our standards of beauty. And it helps us on one end appreciate them and replicate them, but also, I think more importantly, challenge them. 

Papanikolopoulos: As you've been capturing Athens’ industrial corners and associated signage, (daily life graphics that you encounter within the city).... This is something that attracts me to your work, because you go from a heightened appreciation of the classical to the more ordinary. What is newness then for you, Miguel? What is profound? 

Leiro: I think you're touching on an interesting point, because I question this myself all the time. In my own personal design work, it's a lot more classical or nearing the classical perception of design. And then when we do Mayrit, we are working with much more experimental proposals. So I guess in my own personal view, Mayrit has become this more experimental motor for proposing different sorts of projects, even though I'm not necessarily the designer that makes these projects, and I don't want to be that designer either, because my personal work has a different series of interests. 

Mayrit is the actual etymological origin of Madrid, which means land rich in water (from 718 AD when Madrid was an Arab settlement). By being contemporary, we challenge the identity of Madrid, which has been classically associated to Spanish kings, bureaucracy, fascism… (sometimes, you know) and the establishment [i.e. the political establishment]. When actually Madrid was a small town, an Arab town, and no one talks about this Arab identity of Madrid, right? We might discuss this with Córdoba or Granada, but the relevance of Arabic culture and Maghrebi culture in Spain is so important. We do think it should be talked about and we're working on introducing this in a different way, in a more post-colonial manner. But it's challenging.

I don't want to be able to have one vision as a designer and apply that same vision and those same references to developing and designing Biennales, because we have to think about contemporary culture in the most contemporary way possible, and that's a challenge. Whereas if I think about my work, I don't feel that I always have that obligation to do so. What we're trying to do is understand contemporary concerns and to speculate about what the future holds, and how we deal with and discuss it. 

Papanikolopoulos: Mayrit was a completely new platform and identity for the design world and now follows its third year.  What would you say to yourself when you first began it and now as you’ve witnessed three different editions?

Leiro: When I first began it, I was so naive. I think about the first Mayrit, and I laugh…because I think it was three friends basically being like, “Oh my goodness, we have to do this.”   There's this opportunity, and there are all these designers that need a platform. It was a very clear-cut need, and a clear-cut solution that was very simple. And we were happy with that simplicity, because it evoked a lot of things, and it activated a lot of possibilities that then evolved as time went on. And then as human beings, we love complicating ourselves. So it became complicated by becoming a Biennale, and working with curators, and working with researchers to develop a conceptual framework.

But by complicating it, we also gave it a much more pedagogical and investigative relevance, which is also important in Spain, and very necessary. So, we now straddle between making exhibitions and experiences, but also working with researchers, developing new ideas, creating exhibitions that really have an important cultural, sociological, design, and architectural research backdrop. Looking back, I laugh, because we were people that had no idea what they were doing – creatives that had never experienced actually creating an event at that scale. I had curated two exhibitions, and I barely even knew what curating was before doing Mayrit. It was like jumping into the water. Well, you can jump into the water throughout your life, because that's what you have to do. 

Papanikolopoulos: I think naivety is a really strong suit, because you don't have fear if you're naive.

Leiro: Absolutely. I think fear is innately part of all of us, but I think we have to embrace it as much as possible, be it professionally or personally. We obviously don't like it. When we don't like doing something, we won't want to do it, but sometimes it's important.

Papanikolopoulos: It's a fear of processes, that's the big directional shift. Fear of failure. Through continually trying, you become a very consistent presence. That's the beautiful thing, that the Mayrit identity has been established from even just three editions. With Office of Design, do you curate simultaneous projects throughout the year in Madrid with satellites?

Leiro: Office of Design is a non-profit that we started in order to establish Mayrit, but also to work on new proposals regarding design and architecture. As we're a non-profit, we work with government institutions, sometimes brands, and we try to basically develop these proposals and make other projects. Obviously, Mayrit is so large that it's sort of devoured Office of Design to a certain extent, because of the size, and the branding, and the press, and our consistency with the proposal and our establishment as a platform. But originally, Office of Design is the mother, and everything else comes below. But what happened is Mayrit is now something that gets talked about more and more, hopefully. So it's become the son sort of devouring the mother. There's a little bit of a mythological background for understanding this. 

Papanikolopoulos: Perhaps describe the topography of how it operates.

Leiro: The structure is as follows. Whenever we start working on a new edition, we bring on an academic researcher, designer, or architect, select one of the above, or all of the above, and this person is in charge of developing a conceptual framework [Each Biennale].

And then once we have this conceptual framework, and this year we worked with the fantastic Marina Otero Verzier (she's incredible), we use this as a conceptual briefing for curators. We select between three and four curators, and we pair these curators with public institutions in Madrid. And they can be international. We've worked with international curators as well. It does make it more challenging for us from a logistics perspective, but we can do it and we are thinking of working on this more, particularly with Latin America as well, which is another huge situation that we need to address, for sure. 

Papanikolopoulos: All this time we’ve been in the hot sun that we're bathing under – and I have to insist that there is a strong vein of how Mayrit can bring design complexities to the forefront….especially amongst students. 

Leiro: For the public high schools in Madrid, I think for them it's an amazing opportunity to see what design can become, and it's not solely commercial. Design with the general public is understood as a nice car, a nice chair, a nice phone, but there is no discussion around the cultural implications, the social implications of these projects, the political implications. So with Mayrit, we for sure dwell into talking about design in a different way, hopefully not to offend people or to distance people from design, but to really help them frame design in a new way, which could potentially make a lot of people actually become interested in it. As it shapes a different level of relevance, where you're not just talking about a really well-designed chair, or a really nice iPhone or MacBook. You're able to give it another series of connotations and afford it different meanings that give us the ability to communicate it in a different way and hopefully reach audiences that might have not originally been interested in design to develop change.

You can think about social design, a lot of different new branches that are coming from this growing tree that is the design world, that are emerging, and it's really interesting. 

Papanikolopoulos: When I speak to a friend or journalist, I always use Mayrit as an example from my experience visiting you (just for two days) on how I was intrigued (say, fascinated) by the type of research and collective individuals who are making Mayrit a newfound platform. It's this level of inquiry that when I first started Athens Design Forum inspired me to make it a tributary towards other international design movements. I sense it is a kind of a movement, and you get to shape it fundamentally. 

Leiro: First of all, I appreciate that. I guess I would say there's one fundamental virtue that Mayrit has, which I think it's very socially accepting, it's very inclusive with its social dynamics… and that facilitates if you're creative, or a politician, or a lawyer, whatever, it enables these communities to be very easily expanded, blended, and transformed, and it helps them grow – it's not a closed off system. The creative communities are quite the opposite, and I believe they shouldn’t be so closed-off systems, because that only leads to their own demise, you know?

Papanikolopoulos: How do you navigate that? What would you say are the key foundations that made that possible? 

Leiro: I think... If you can use it as a model... It might seem dumb, but good friendships – hard work and the willingness to collaborate. 

Papanikolopoulos: For example, your connections with governmental institutions, smaller institutions, guerrilla-style collectives, you navigate all of them. 

Leiro: Well, that's hard work and trust. You have to build trust. But the government side is pure hard work and hustle, as we talk about. You just have to go for it, know who to talk to, present your project, present it properly, explain the impact, and explain the potential. And then with collectives and smaller organizations, it is about going to exhibitions, being curious, meeting people, and being open to discussion. What would you say to young stars who are ambitious and entrepreneurial? 

Papanikolopoulos: I meet many young students who, whenever I talk to them about you or even my personal story, it's that founding stone where you decide to make your own system. But for many people, they feel all the doors closing on them. And part of it is just staying true to your original quest. And for you, it seems like that was key.

Leiro: Yeah, I guess maybe the opposite, no? Then if all the doors are closing, take advantage of the doors that do open. And then that door will lead you to another door, you know? That's sort of what happened to me. When I first started curating, it was because someone who worked for a government organization, my good friend Marta Rincon, basically asked me, “Oh, you lived in New York, you studied there, why don't you organize a show of Spanish designers in New York?” And I went and I did it.

Papanikolopoulos: That was your first show?

Leiro: No, second, second. But this conversation was happening at the same time that I was curating my first show.  So I hadn't fully curated anything, and she told me, “Why don't you do this?” And I was like, “That's not a bad idea…..” The important people in your life…. She opened the door because it didn't click in my brain. I didn't wake up one morning and say, “I should curate Spanish design.” 

Papanikolopoulos: To trust in the feedback of others (to an extent). 

Leiro: Oh, absolutely. Trust people you should trust. Train your intuition. I think your intuition isn't something that you just have to assume is always going to be on your side. You have to train it. Marta is like my godmother. I always believed that special people come into your life. I lived in Rome for one year and that's where I met Marta, at the Spanish Academy in Rome. That's where she told me all of this. Marta Rincon changed everything, for sure.

Papanikolopoulos: But at that point, where was the first show? 

Leiro: The first show was of a guerrilla designer collective from Barcelona that lived in a warehouse and made everything. From the door handles to the kitchens to the bathrooms to the furniture.

Papanikolopoulos: And you brought them to Madrid? 

Leiro: I brought them to Madrid to a project space called Space to Be. And then I think, well, I don't remember what the dates are, but then the May of that year or the following year,  I curated Errata, which was the show of Spanish designers at Mast Books in New York City in 2019.

Papanikolopoulos: Another note  I also believe to be important, is your role as an educator… how does that influence your process?

Leiro: So I teach at IED and iE, which are both private schools. They have schools all over Europe. Particularly in Madrid, I teach design history so it's something that I enjoy, thanks to Ines llasera, a friend of mine, a designer as well, who invited me to teach the class. When you teach, you learn. It's that simple.

Papanikolopoulos: Do students ask you more business-oriented questions (alongside your entrepreneurial spirit) or do they lead more craft-focused inquiries?

Leiro: I think design schools really need to improve the way they talk about design business and design entrepreneurship because there are so many different ways you can approach it. I don't really have time to address that within my courses, but I do always try to give real examples of my life because I think that creates empathy with the students – be it a business or a project example. Things that I was feeling and I was going through, and anxieties I was having when I was studying, right? And I think that helps create this sense of empathy and with that empathy, you can establish good communication that helps the students learn, which is what we need to do in the end. 

Images © Katerina Papanikolopoulos for Athens Design Forum