MIGUEL LEIRO
Home
Projects
About
ABOUT
Miguel Leiro is a designer, curator, and educator based in Madrid who focuses on expanding the cultural value of design. After receiving a bachelor's in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute (New York City) he started a practice in Madrid that specializes in products, creative direction, interiors, and branding.
SELECTED CLIENTS
Camper
David Chipperfield Architects
Panoramah!
PIN-UP Magazine
Mast Books
Font Barcelona
Marmoles Covarrubias
SELECTED AWARDS + PRESS
Maison & Objet Rising Talent Award
Rome Prize
AD Best of Spain
El País
Wallpaper Magazine
PIN - UP
AD Spain
Neo2
El Semanal
MAYRIT - 2024 Edition
The Mayrit Biennial 2024, Madrid's key event for design, architecture, and contemporary art, highlights the city as a hub for emerging talent. Themed "Wet Dreams," it explores water's role in eco-social dynamics through decolonial, queer, and hydro-feminist perspectives, led by curator Marina Otero Verzier.
Taking place across venues like CentroCentro, Museo de América, Casa de México, and Matadero Madrid, the event features 97 participants, 15 exhibitions, 5 workshops, 5 talks, and 3 celebrations, fostering interdisciplinary exchange. With an anticipated 482,361 visitors, it solidifies its place in the global cultural discourse.
THEME:
Wet Dreams, Developed by Marina Otero Verzier
CURATORS:
Cecilia Moszce Tham
Grandeza Studio
Hyper Studio
INSTITUNIONAL VENUES:
Matadero Madrid
CentroCentro
Museum of America
National Museum for Decorative Arts
INSTITUNIONAL PARTNERS:
Ministry of Culture of Spain
Madrid City Council
Institut Francais
Acción Cultural Española
Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID)
SPONSORS:
Cervezas Alhambra
FINSA
Formica
iED Madrid
BBVA Future Designers
COMPLETE DOSSIER
PROGRAM GUIDE (ESP)
MAYRIT - 2022 Edition
Mayrit Bienal 2022 was the first edition as an architecture and design biennial, held in Madrid from June 16 to July 6, 2022. The event aimed to redefine the traditional biennial format, promoting contemporary design as a cultural force. Its second edition saw the participation of 90 creators, 17 exhibitions, 5 talks, 4 workshops, 4 installations, and 3 performances, attracting 33,152 visitors.
Under the theme "The Drowned Worlds", inspired by J.G. Ballard's novel The Drowned World, the biennial explored speculative design as a tool for addressing ecological and social challenges. Through fiction and radical design practices, the event engaged with concepts of coexistence and alternative aesthetics.
Mayrit featured both Spanish and international talent and fostered a participatory, transgressive approach to design. The event hosted exhibitions and various workshops, performances, and parties, contributing to the vibrant, forward-thinking atmosphere of the biennial
THEME:
Drowned Worlds , developed by the Institute of Postnatural Studies
CURATORS:
Joel Blanco
Sofia Blanco
Sina Sohrab
Victor Clemente
Tres Tipos Gráficos
INSTITUNIONAL VENUES:
National Museum of Decorative Arts
Matadero Madrid
INSTITUNIONAL PARTNERS:
Madrid City Council
Ministry of Culture
Acción Cultural Española
SPONSORS:
Bershka
Cosentino
Finsa
Loreak Mendian
CAP
Fever Tree
Roca
Cervezas Turia
iED Madrid
COMPLETE DOSSIER
PROGRAM GUIDE (ESP)
MAYRIT - 2020 Edition
The first edition of MAYRIT was born as design festival that took place from February 10th to 20th, 2020 in Madrid. It served as a platform to support the local emerging scene, aiming to champion contemporary design as a cultural and intellectual driver. The program of this edition revolves around a series of workshops, conferences, exhibitions, and installations held in various spaces across the city. For the first edition we hosted around 3000 guests in 10 days.
INSTITUTIONAL PARTNER:
INJUVE
ETSAM
MEDIA PARTNER:
Neo2
PROGRAM GUIDE (ESP)
ERRATA - May 2019 - New York Design Week - Mast Books
Errata is an exhibition hosted at Mast Books, celebrating an assemblage of works that question the physical condition of both books and design objects. It will bring together new work from various Spanish designers, ranging in material and typology.
In the 1971 novel by Anthony Powell, a central character, Bagshaw, is nicknamed “Books”, a short version of his full nickname, “Books Do Furnish A Room”. Several stories circulate about how Bagshaw received this unusual nickname. In one story, he got too drunk at a cocktail party, and pulled down an entire bookcase in an attempt to stay upright. Laying in heap with books all around him, he quipped “Books do furnish a room, don’t they?” In a different version, Bagshaw is caught in bed with the wife of his boss, a London literary editor. To break the awkward silence, Bagshaw says, “Books do furnish a room, don’t they?”, and conversation shifts to literary work, allowing the trio to ignore the “elephant in the room”.
How should we understand the role of books in furnishing our day-to-day? They present an image of intelligence and knowledge, while mainly playing the role of a placeholder, accumulating dust in otherwise empty shelves. Just like the books we all say we read, a person possessing an object and using it tells us a lot about that person. On the contrary, a person having an object and not using it also tells us a lot about that person. Through the conception of specifically designed objects, Errata presents an expanded perspective, developing this dynamic between functional and perceived use. A collision of the book and design object.
CURATORS:
Miguel Leiro
Nelson Harst (Antifurniture)
VENUE:
Mast Books
INSTITUNIONAL PARTNERS:
Acción Cultural Española
Pratt Institute
ICEX
Interiors from Spain
READ COMPLETE DOSSIER
LA NOCHE DE LOS JUEVES - 2018 - Sociedad 0 - space to be
If you search for Sociedad0 on Google, an Instagram account, a location, and its corresponding Streetview view appear, showing two photos of an empty industrial warehouse. The collective has lived and worked in that space since November 2017 as a continuation of the project that began in another warehouse in PobleNou (Barcelona). _2B space to be is pleased to present Sociedad0’s first exhibition in Madrid. This exhibition has been curated by Miguel Leiro.
"The Thursday Night" began about a year ago. The group would go out to collect the remnants of Barcelona's industry and households to build with friends and university colleagues until 5 a.m., when everyone would present their piece with breakfast in hand.
In 1974, Andrea Branzi said in Radical Architecture. Il rifiuto del ruolo disciplinare (Casabella 386): "A new architecture cannot be derived from a simple act of planning but rather from the modified use that individuals can create of their own environment." In 2018, Sociedad0 lives and works in community. A space has been created where they can live, sleep, store clothes, and work. Alcoves and kitchens have been built, and food is managed through an app. One person cooks and cleans for Sociedad0. Each individual creating within the space conceives it in their own way, as does anyone who passes through. It’s cold in winter and hot in summer. The space is defined by absences and presences, by having lived for 7 months in tents.
The exhibition at SPACETOBE showcases this idea of opening up for the first time what has been happening inside Sociedad0 over the past two years through the projection of home elements and other experiments, where 'design' is presented as a basic necessity tool, addressing the model of life to be projected and experienced in a space that is infinitely built with whatever is at hand.