Agora Design Grant

Biography

Matteo Penza lives and works in Marseille. Like many of his contemporaries, he grapples with the sense of urgency that characterises our time. His mood oscillates between despair and feverish excitement—between Napoleon and the blues.

To navigate this condition, he forges connections with others experiencing similar forms of emotional distress. Together, they attempt to develop collective strategies much like support groups, whether for Autonomous Astronauts or Alcoholics Anonymous. Precious moments of exchange from which projects emerge.

At the same time, because he works extensively and often struggles to distinguish where work ends and free time begins, he also devotes part of his energy to formulating thoughts of varying coherence. This stems in part from being awarded the Agora Research Grant for Design in 2023 for his project Cocagne, a distinction that comes with a responsibility to continue reflecting and producing research.

He enjoys collaborating with people outside his professional sphere, allowing him to explore forms that differ from those typically expected of a designer and enabling him to avoid easy answers to the tiresome question: “What do you do for a living?”

Research Project at Fondation Martell

Bordeaux, Cognac, Madeira, Marsala, Porto and Sherry. A narrative unfolds through the histories of six wines—fortified, mutage or distilled wines—linked by a shared commercial origin. Between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries, British merchants played a decisive role in their success by marketing them throughout Great Britain and across the colonies of the Empire, developing a variety of commercial strategies to maximise profit. The history of these wines is deeply intertwined with the emergence of capitalism itself.

Layered onto this historical research is a fictional investigation. A paranoid and conspiratorial inquiry into the fungal and contagious origins of capitalism, T0RUL4G4TE deliberately conflates concepts that are, at first glance, widely separated. “Jam”, “triangular trade”, “fungal parasites”, “capitalism” and “influencers” become entangled in the discourse of the narrator-lecturer.

Interim Results from the Residency

The first of the six chapters has been written and presented in the form of a lecture-performance. Following the narrator’s reasoning, this chapter examines jam as a technological innovation that enabled the emergence of banking and commerce, insofar as preservation allows accumulation and exchange.

Drawing a parallel between jam and these wines—both of which undergo technological transformations to ensure their preservation during transport—the lecture develops a deliberately absurd syllogism: if jam is at the origin of large-scale trade, and large-scale trade is a component of capitalism, and if these wines are a form of jam, then these wines must be at the origin of capitalism.

To accompany the presentation, a booklet was produced compiling dates, technical information and ancillary arguments related to the history of these wines. A tablecloth was also created, functioning both as a practical support for a shared meal and as a mnemonic device for the lecture, printed with blurred images drawn from the booklet.

Place within the Labo Almanach

How does the history of these wines resonate with other histories? How do they connect local, geopolitical and global scales? How has their trade shaped territories and even contributed to the formation of the terroirs from which they originate? How has commerce transformed landscapes, influenced species adaptation, agricultural practices, production methods and transportation networks? How has it shaped tastes, fashions and habits? And how has it made entire production sectors, involving thousands of people across vast territories, dependent upon one or only a handful of buyers?

This project offers a way of investigating the social and economic dynamics that have shaped—and continue to shape—the Charente region and beyond. It does so by bringing together different disciplinary perspectives in order to better understand and interpret these interconnected histories.

Resources Involved

• Antoine Vernouillet, chef, Cognac
• Philippe Meyzie, food historian, Bordeaux
• Jean-Yves Marilleau, winegrower, Sonnac
• Jérôme Fleuret, winegrower, Champagnolles
• Roland Vilneau, winegrower, Verdille
• Géraldine Gallant, archivist, Cognac
• Andrea Mignolo, documentary filmmaker, Milan