The Salone del Mobile.Milano will make a start even before the opening of the pavilions. It will begin in the city, where design meets everyday life, the footsteps of residents, the curiosity of tourists.
The first sign of this collective story is Vernissage, an open-air photographic exhibition in Via Dante until April 15 th, illustrating the theme that will give voice and shape to the entire edition – Thought for Humans.
Through photos by the American photographer Bill Durgin, Vernissage brings together a series of suspended, silent and powerful images, which explore the indissoluble relationship between the human body and the designed object, between creativity and function, between sensitive intelligence and matter.
Each shot is a visual dialogue between anatomy and design, built with
materials that narrate not only the form, but also the vision: wood, metal, fabric and bioplastic, selected for their aesthetic value and for their symbolic value in terms of sustainability.
Living, conscious materials, capable of blending with the skin, evoking design that is not only beautiful to look at, but right to live in.
Displayed along one of the busiest streets in the centre of Milan, the exhibition invites you to stop, to observe, to reflect on the beauty of the sort of design that becomes a universal language, profoundly human and – today more than ever – responsible.
Thought for Humans. will permeate the entire city and its main routes in a capillary manner, thanks to a structured network of digital systems that will speak directly to citizens as they go about their daily lives. 49 LED walls, located in focal points across Milan, from Buenos Aires to Forlanini, Ripamonti to Farini and the Central Station: large digital screens will transform the city into an open-air gallery, engaging the viewer with powerful and immediate images.
The strategy then extends to an integrated system that takes in not only railway stations, but also airports, with 38 screens to intercept the flow of national and international travellers at key transit points and 500 buses equipped with 1000
screens. The campaign will also feature on the underground network with 320 billboards.
Communication will literally move with the city through a project that will transform Milan into an urban stage on which design is not only displayed, but encounters people in their spaces, in their times and in their daily actions, in a real collective visual narrative.
The Salone will continue on its journey through the city, along the same invisible line that unites bodies, matter and eyes, transforming urban space into a fabric of widespread experiences.
While Vernissage forms the visual and emotional beginning, it is with the Design Kiosk that the narrative will become word, dialogue and live exchange between those who create design and those who pass through it every day.
Open until April 13 th , the Kiosk, curated by Corraini Edizioni and designed
by DWA Design Studio, is much more than a temporary bookshop: it is a cultural garrison, a meeting place, a small narrative architectural structure where authors, illustrators, designers and passers-by can mingle throughout the day. Every day at 6.30pm there will be a conversation. A face.
A voice. After Piero Lissoni, Federica Biasi will take the stage on Thursday 3rd April, Alessandro Valenti on Saturday 5th April, Aldo Cibic on Monday 7 th April, Stephen Burks on Thursday 10 th April, Olimpia Zagnoli on Friday 11 th April, taking turns in a series of talks that will tell the story of design from the inside.
The Salone official capsule collection will also be available at the Kiosk, including clothing and collectibles designed for those who want to take home a fragment of this community that comes together in Milan every April.
The story will then move on to become profound and theatrical, alternating light and darkness. Mother, the immersive installation designed by Robert Wilson, will take shape from 6th April, in the fascinating half-light of the Museo della Pietà Rondanini. A visionary tribute to Michelangelo’s unfinished sculpture, in dialogue with the music of Arvo Pärt.
Then from 7th to 21 st April, light will be transformed into knowledge with Library of Light, the site-specific installation by British artist Es Devlin in the Cortile d’Onore at the Pinacoteca di Brera, A living structure, inhabited by over 2,000
volumes donated by Feltrinelli, becomes a performative library: a place to experience in silence or to experience through words. In the heart of the luminous bookshop, in fact, three evening meetings will give voice to thought, sparking crosscutting and multidisciplinary reflections.
The first will be held on Tuesday 8th April, at 7.00pm, with Weaving Indian Art, a talk that intermeshes aesthetics, culture and identity through textiles. Vinita Chaitanya, interior designer and founder of Prism, Urmila Chakraborty,
writer and expert in Patachitra Folk Art, and Malika Verma, founder of the Border&Fall platform, will take the public on a journey through traditional tapestries, embroideries and motifs that become
contemporary artistic expression.
The Italian-Indian journalist Cristina Kiran Piotti will moderate the event, crafting a sensitive and profound account of how these practices, once confined to the field of craftsmanship, are now carving out their place in the world of art and design.
On Wednesday 9th April, again at 7.00pm, it will be the turn of the writer and intellectual Walter Siti, with C’era una volta il corpo (Once Upon a Time in the Body), an event curated by Feltrinelli that will touch on literature,
philosophy and the human condition.
A body that changes, that battles, that tells of the times we live in. Last but not least, on Thursday, April 17 th at 6pm, the discussion Thought for Humans. will explore
the role of the body in space, through the complementary lenses of art, theatre and museography.
The artist and designer Matilde Cassani, the architect and museographer Luca Cipelletti and the set designer Margherita Palli will be led by the curator Annalisa Rosso.
An investigation into the emotional and sensory value of physical experience, the way we live and inhabit places, and the centrality of the human being in contemporary design.
There will also be eight graphic interventions around Milan, near some of the city’s most important design icons, aimed at celebrating the role of the culture of design and demonstrating how design is present and accessible to all.
These include the handrail of the M1/M2 Milan Metro, designed by Franco Albini and Franca Helg, the bus shelters designed by Norman Foster, and the concrete panettone designed by Enzo Mari.
Finally, over 100 showrooms belonging to brands exhibiting at the annual events and at Euroluce will join in with the great design festival, featuring in the Fuorisalone.it guide and throwing open their doors to design lovers.
With a view to involving residents and visitors again this year, the Salone is promoting the Welcome Project, in collaboration with the Municipality of Milan, Fondazione Fiera Milano, NABA, Nuova Accademia delle Belle Arti, IED Istituto Europeo di Design, Design School
– Politecnico di Milano, and Domus Academy. More than 100 students will be involved, providing the public with information on the Salone and the main events in the city. To make them visible and recognisable, work jackets produced in collaboration with Ethicarei, the first ethical Made in Italy supply chain, will ensure they stand out.
The uniform serves as a statement of intent: innovation, sustainability, and ethics. The values underpinning this partnership are the same ones that today are mapping out a new trajectory for design — a conscious future, built on the solid roots of the Italian artisan tradition, projected towards a fairer, more human tomorrow.
In the City
Talks. Library of Light
Curated by Annalisa Rosso
Pinacoteca di Brera – Cortile d’Onore
Tuesday 8 th April
7 pm, in English
Weaving Indian Art
Malika Verma, Brand Strategist and Vocal Craft Advocate, Founder at Border&Fall
Urmila Chakraborty, Professor, Writer, Specialist in Patachitra Folk Art
Vinita Chaitanya, Interior Designer
Moderator Cristina Kiran Piotti, Italian-Indian Journalist and Consultant
Wednesday 9 th April
7 pm, in Italian
C’era una volta il corpo
Walter Siti, Writer, Literary Critic and Essayist
Curated by Feltrinelli
Thursday 17th April
6 pm, in Italian
Thought for Humans.
Matilde Cassani, Artist and Designer
Luca Cipelletti, Architect and Museographer
Margherita Palli, Set Designer
Moderator Annalisa Rosso, Editorial Director & Cultural Events Advisor, Salone del Mobile.Milano
Design Kiosk
1 st – 13 th April
10 am – 7 pm
Piazza della Scala
Editorial selection curated by Corraini Edizioni
Design by DWA-Design Studio
Tuesday 1 st April
6.30 pm, in Italian
Piero Lissoni in conversation with Serena Scarpello
Thursday 3 rd April
6.00 pm, in Italian
Federica Biasi in conversation with Serena Scarpello
Saturday 5th April
6.30 pm, in Italian
Alessandro Valenti in conversation with Giulia Ricci
Monday 7th April
6.30 pm, in Italian
Aldo Cibic in conversation with Serena Scarpello
Thursday 10th April
6.30 pm, in English
Stephen Burks and Malika Leiper in conversation with Serena Scarpello
Friday 11 th April
6.30 pm, in Italian
Olimpia Zagnoli in conversation with Pietro Corraini
Vernissage
Photographic exhibition
Via Dante
25th March – 15th April
Open 24 hours
In collaboration with FLA Plus, FederlegnoArredo
care of the redaction
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