We are excited to reveal the DIA will collaborate with Milan Design Week 2023 and host a series of events in Milan! On a research mission, we are looking back at the 2022 highlights reported by the DIA’s Head of Programs, Bernadette Wilson, who was on-site in June.

While it primarily is presented as a furniture show, Salone Del Mobile is a drawcard for designers from almost every discipline. It was truly inspiring to witness so many designers immersing themselves in Milan, a city committed to design—Design is Milano is Design.

Salone del Mobile is located at Milan Fairgrounds, Rho Milan designed by architect Massimiliano Fuksas and includes eight pavilions covering 345,000 m2 of floor space. Milan Design Week is spread throughout Milan in 5 different design districts, each unique district has its own theme.

Exhibiting Australian designers in 2022 included Volker Haug Studio in collaboration with Hecker Guthrie, Tom Fereday, Christopher Boots, Nikolai Kotlarczyk at Salone Satellite, Dean Norton, and Object Density. International designers visited included Lee Broom, Kahled El Mays at Nilfur Gallery, and Lucia Eames. Suppliers visited included SMEG, Jan Kath, Arper, Artemide, Tacchini, Pedrali and TON.

It is impossible to recap here how much inspiration and thought leadership happens in Milan in one story.

Lucia Eames, Seeing with the Heart

This exhibition located in the Brera Design District Lucia Eames: Seeing with the Heart, marks the first in-depth display of her work.

Eames worked in many different mediums: poetry, photography, sculpture, and graphic design among them. For the first time, an in-depth display of her vast array of work unveils Lucia’s relationship to the natural world through its presence in the patterns and forms of her work and references her upbringing in the world of her parents, Charles Eames and his first wife, Catherine Woermann—it shows her talent for reinterpreting the patterns, forms and lighting conditions she found in the natural world.

The late Lucia Eames produced creative work throughout her life. But her career was primarily focused on protecting the legacy of her father and stepmother,  so her own designs took a backseat. This extent of her work was unknown to her own children until after her passing. Her 

“My siblings and I, as well as our archiving team, are thrilled to bring to life the work of our mother in Milan,” says Lucia Eames Archives’s Carla Atwood Hartman, exhibit curator and Lucia’s daughter. “During our process of archiving, we have delighted in her hope and humor, and now are excited to share her gifts of spirit, joy and optimism with a wider audience to reach new generations of design lovers.”

Port Light by Tom Fereday for Rakumba

Created by Australian designer Tom Fereday in collaboration with lighting manufacturer Rakumba, the Port Light is a uniquely reversible table lamp that celebrates the properties of cast crystal glass. The light is reversible simply by flipping the glass body over to create different moods and light interactions. It is housed in a brass base.

Volker Haug and Hecker Guthrie

und Messing—‘and brass’ in Volker’s native German—is an ode to the studio’s cornerstone material. The collection of lighting explores the diverse expressions of brass; each piece is hand-finished across a spectrum of tones ranging from polished to dark bronzed. The studio refers to the concept and design phase for this collection as a “two-year incubation period” during which the design team forewent sketching and dove directly into prototyping.

As Volker says, “this was, in part, a response to the pandemic conditions, as the physicality of making things and the energy you get from being active were hugely appealing during a time of dormancy.” Adding, “it made our ‘tinkering’ phase much longer and more adventurous, which we feel resulted in the strength and the refinement of the finished series.” In the very early stages, the team worked closely with their long-time metalworker to produce rough prototypes that were “deliberately made quickly and haphazardly” to encourage multiple iterations of form and finish. He adds, “they ended up becoming a source of inspiration in themselves, and the more we made, the closer we got to the final iteration with the prototyping quirks in tow.”

Kahled El Mays, Nilfur Gallery

Multidisciplinary designer Khaled El Mays created a surreal psychedelic-style installation at Nilufar Gallery for Milan design week, which featured statement modular seating.

On display at Milan's Nilufar Gallery, the two-room installation featured a large mural of an otherworldly scene that includes ambiguous architecture and faceless figures.

“The installation at Nilufar Gallery is an invitation into the studio's world: a world of wonders morphing natural elements into a fantastic and enchanted state of being. The flora modular bench and its especially customised fabric, reminiscent of psychedelic illustrations, gives the viewers all the physical ingredients needed to step into the perspectives on the wall, that on its side distorts reality while creating a new one. From the same bench, you can experience the physical dimension and an entirely different one” comments El Mays.

WHY NOW?

A design collection “capable of bridging the gap between the industrial design product and the experimental language that many designers have adopted, the so-called ‘design art’ for collectors and galleries“. A selection of 17 international realities, presented more than 30 pieces from 14 different countries, from Belgium to South Africa, from Korea to the United States. The result was a catalogue of furnishing elements and components representative of creativity free from labels and old schemes.

The designers and studios selection: Diego Faivre, Anna Aagaard Jensen, Helle Mardahl, Bethan Gray, Nienke Sikkema, Oliver-Selim Boualam, Nawaaz Saldulker, NM3, Duccio Maria Gambi, Supaform, Mary-Lynn & Carlo Massoud, Maarten de Ceulaer, Deknudt Mirrors, Van Severen, Objects of Common Interest, Odd Matter, Sam Stewart, Yeon Jinyeong e 13 desserts.

The products of the WHY NOW? collection are also on sale on the spotti.com online shop.
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Dean Norton, Containa, Rossana Orlandi Gallery

Containa is an encased furniture series that explores the narrative of the vessel and its contents. Focusing on an organic, sculptural, wood-turned form, housed within mitre-bonded shards of frosted glass, protected, still, and delicately floating in what appears to be a blanket of fog.

Attained through a combination of natural materials combined with traditional and modern machining techniques. This results in a functional art piece that is perceptible in both design precision and organic composition, a symbolic exploration of confinement and protection.

Lee Broom, Divine Inspiration

British designer Lee Broom unveiled his largest exhibition at Milan design week to date, showcasing six new lighting designs inspired by places of worship, and a setting in a building that echoes brutalist architecture and places of worship.

As part of the exhibition, Broom took over entire building in Milan's Brera district and filled it with more than 100 lights.

Across a series of rooms, the designer presented pieces that borrow from the monumental, ethereal quality of religious buildings and artefacts, particularly those designed in the mid-20th century.

Along with the stunning and considered work, the Design Inspiration Show Notes—referencing architects, religious architecture, interiors, and artefacts, leads you to contemplate how light is often linked to hallowed places, evoking a sense of stillness, reverence, and contemplation.

Triennale Milano and Memphis Milano

An exhibition curated by Christoph Radl, displaying the brand's most iconic objects made between 1981 and 1986—a five-year journey across one of the most disruptive cultural movements of Italian design.

The objects were displayed in chronological order in the Curva Gallery, which is more than 100 meters long, just like a fashion show in which the observer will be the one moving along the catwalk in a space that, thanks to the furniture and the music by Seth Troxler, feet like a nightclub.

Known for the use of bright neon, primary and pastel colors, bold patterns and geometric shapes, Memphis style represents an explosive mix of Art Deco, Futurism, and Pop Art. Memphis continues to influence the imagination of the general public, from fashion to art and cinema. Its spirit is a source of inspiration for designers around the world.

The DIA will be collaborating with Milan Design Week 2023. If you are planning to head to Salone del Mobile, 18 to 23 April 2023, please let us know as we are looking to host a celebratory event for Australian designers in Milan.

You can contact us at bwilson@design.org.au.