Marco Sousa Santos BIO
Marco Sousa Santos is a Lisbon based designer who has been working across several fields of design and design management.
Since 1995, as the founder and director of Proto Design and Experimenta Design, he has promoted several projects and design collections with national and foreign authors, contributing to the new “vision” on Design Culture in Portugal.
As a designer, Marco Sousa Santos is firmly rooted amongst a generation of designers who have built a strong international reputation for contemporary Portuguese design. His projects and products have been displayed and exhibited in institutions of reference, such as the V&A in London, MOMA Store in New York, the Triennale of Milan and the Salon du Meuble in Paris, featured alongside some of the world’s most prestigious designers.
Marco Sousa Santos is also Professor of Industrial Design at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Lisbon. He locates his studio in the Portuguese capital and from here, he works with many Portuguese producers with whom he has established dynamic partnerships for his new-born BRANCA label
Marco Sousa Santos have been developing several interior and exhibition design projects since 1995 when he started an editorial project called PROTO DESIGN.
Art directing design editions with some of the best Portuguese Designers, he also comissioned several International Designers as Konstantin Grcic, Sebastian Bergne, Bjorn Dalhstrom, C. Pillet, A. Haberli...
In 1998 Marco Sousa Santos started the EXPERIMENTA DESIGN Biennial being its Art Director for 3 years and conceiving some of it most relevant exhibitions as: Essentials Deluxe, Design Inserts and Estado de Alma. His curatorial and exhibition Design work for Experimenta evolved into many other projects within the Portuguese Design with International presentations as People in 100% Design 2006, Portuguese Design 2000 in Milan or the Portuguese Road Show in Frankfurt and Tokyo 1998 / 99.
Comissioned by The British Council in 2000 Marco Sousa Santos Curated and Designed the first genuine British Exhibition in Portugal at the Lisbon Design Museum - Freeze Frame - showing seven of the most relevant british designers.
During the period of 2001 and 2003, Marco Sousa Santos worked on personal instalations and environments toghether with some of the most relevant international designers; In 2001 Milan's Trienale Essere benne Essere, showed "Perfect Skin" and in 2002 at the Salon du Meuble de Paris, presented the "Low Lounge Code".
Between 2003 and 2004 , M.S.S. Art Directed a Design Program for the Lisbon Design Fair IN'NOVA called SEARCH'IN - This integrated Design Program involved a wide range of Designers, Companies and Design Schools from Europe in seminars, workshops and comissions, having as result the edition of more than 100 new products.
From M.S.S. latest works the most relevant ones are also the WALKCULTURE Exhibition at Designmai in Berlin and the Expo Zaragoza 2008 Portuguese Pavillion toghether with Bak Gordon Architecht and the Portuguese Artist Nuno Cera.
NOMEADO DESIGNER DO ANO 2010 PELA RECONHECIDA FEIRA INTERCASA, NO AMBITO LISBON DESIGN SHOW, MARCO SOUSA SANTOS É A GERAÇÃO DO NOVO DESIGN PORTUGUÊS.
BRANCA WILL PRESENT THE 2012 COLLECTION AT THE STOCKHOLM FURNITURE FAIR
7 AT 12 FEV.
