With Milan Design Week 2024 approaching swiftly, glimpses of what is in the offing for the city of Milan—exhibitions, installations, new launches, pop-ups, and a myriad of discourses—are being gradually unveiled to the public. From April 15 to 21, the city in Italy, will morph into the nerve centre of the creative community across the globe, hosting one of the most celebrated and influential design events on the annual calendar. In tandem with being a springboard for artists, designers and brands to showcase their creative endeavours and innovative designs to the global audience, the design festival also platforms collective voices of different countries. A diverse array of group exhibitions, installations and shows weave a tapestry of representation from different geographies.

Diving into the capacious repertoire set to unfold during the design week, STIR enlists presentations that speak of specific countries, their design and craft culture, its evolution and place in the contemporary landscape.

BOLD Dualities by Belgium is Design

Belgium is Design is committed to promoting Belgian design talent internationally, connecting design professionals at key events across the world, Milan Design Week is one of them. This year, Belgium is Design will focus its efforts on a major exhibition in the Fuorisalone within Baranzate Ateliers: BOLD Dualities. The design exhibition will spotlight a prolific new generation while providing a broad perspective on Belgian design. The curators at Baroness O. contrive a coherent concept that brings together a repository that includes a range of collectible design and industrial design that represents Belgian modesty in design and the use of materials. Unusual material applications, unconventional extrusions and objects without apparent functions deviate from contemporary design norms. The selection primarily includes furniture design, larger decorative objects, mirrors, ceramics, wooden objects, textiles and wallpapers among other creations. Designers and studios such as Nathalie Van der Massen, Nortstudio, Oskar de Roover, Studio MOTO, Duplex, Jules Vrijsen, Muller Van Severen and Fractall participate in the show.

JOY by House of Switzerland

Pro Helvetia and Presence Switzerland will present individual and collective creations by young designers, independent studios, established brands and universities from Switzerland at House of Switzerland Milano. The group exhibition dubbed JOY at Milan Design Week 2024 is set to celebrate Swiss design, its dynamism and its potential as a positive force for societal transformation. In its Emerging Talents selection, Pro Helvetia will muster eight young designers whose work is rooted in shared values: Estelle Bourdet, NEUNOI, Varia Instruments, CLARIE + LÉA, Luc Reinacher, ScheideggerPaulis, SALIENTI and Tabea Wschianky. The theme also gave rise to four collaborations between designers and established brands, all to be presented in the exhibition In Collaboration. Several universities, institutions, galleries and brands complete the lineup of the group exhibition. Each of the group exhibition’s 23 projects will interpret ‘joy’ in an innovative and nuanced way, revealing the power of acknowledged emotions in the design process.

New Store 2.0 by Het Nieuwe Instituut

The Netherlands’ national museum and institute for architecture, design and digital culture, Het Nieuwe Instituut will present the second edition of the New Store during the Milan Design Week 2024. The experimental pop-up shop tests alternative forms of exchange that can help achieve a sustainable future. A refreshing look at how a future retail store could look like, the New Store 2.0 will investigate a circular value chain for a waste product deemed worthless: human hair. The pop-up presents two new value economies. The customers can first receive a free haircut from hairdresser Alberto Fucci. Their hair clippings are then harvested for the Dutch start-up Human Hair Loop, which uses a groundbreaking technique to make sustainable yarn. The customers can also join South Korean mixed media artist, Woo Jin Joo and other visitors in creating a human hair textile piece—exploring the possibilities of the material while diminishing the associated stigma and disgust.

Aric Chen, General and Artistic Director of the Het Nieuwe Instituut, says, “New Store is one of our ‘testing ground’ initiatives for putting ideas into practice—for bringing proposals out into the real world, and seeing how they work. For us, as a cultural institution, it’s about not just discussing and presenting designers’ ideas for confronting our many social and ecological challenges—but also enacting them.”

Future Impact 2 by DesignSingapore Council

From furniture that absorbs carbon dioxide to heat-transferring ceramics, DesignSingapore Council will bring seven pioneering designers’ experiments with technology, materials and production at the Future Impact 2. The curators Tony Chambers and Maria Cristina Didero work with some of Singapore’s most innovative designers to present impactful design solutions for the future. The selected pieces either dabble with different technologies such as 3D printing or push the boundaries of the extant production methods—underlining Singapore’s distinctively forward-thinking design semantics. The participating designers are Christian+Jade, David Lee, Faezah Shaharuddin, Genevieve Ang and Interactive Materials Lab, and Zavier Wong. Didero, co-curator of Future Impact 2, shares, “Through this exhibition, designers unveil the transformative potential of technology, marking a pivotal moment in design innovation, but also pure talent and creativity, in the unique frame of a historical Milan landmark such as the Rotonda del Pellegrini.”

Stay tuned to STIR's coverage of Milan Design Week 2024 which showcases the best of exhibitions, studios, designers, installations, brands and events to look out for. Explore EuroCucina and all the design districts—Fuorisalone, 5vie Design Week, Isola Design Week, Brera Design District and Porta Venezia Design District.