As Milan Design Week commences, and its tapestry of events unfolds, from galleries to exhibitions to large scale installations, the city transforms itself into a sort of surreal movie set, where modern art installations flank medieval stone palazzos, and ephemeral design exhibits come and go in the blink of an eye. The much-awaited design event offers one a chance to immerse themselves into everything design, a nerve centre of creativity and ingenuity. Each district, each gallery, and each designer adds to the rhizomatic nature of the ‘Milanese design system,' an encounter with each its kind of adventure.

For Gianni Canova, rector and full professor of Film History and Filmology at IULM University in Milan, Italy, adventure is the institute's word of the year. As Canova explains, "The term should be understood in its Latin meaning, adventura, meaning 'what is to happen, what is to come,' with the hope that this word looks precisely to the future.” What Milan in its busiest week of the year promises is that excitement that comes with adventure, a sense that is embodied. Based on this spirit of the next and the unpredictability and excitement of it, the IULM University’s TAM-TAM - Museum of Dissemination of Communication presents the exhibition Le avventure della visione (The Adventures of Vision) bringing together various works by the Italian artist and designer, Virgilio Villoresi.

Villoresi, who has become known for his distinct surrealist vision that blends sketches, sculptures, stop motion and the world of miniature dioramas, is inspired by animators such as Polish graphic designer and cartoonist Jan Lenica and Polish film director Walerian Borowczyk, apart from avant-garde movies such as Le Sang d’un poète (The Blood of a Poet) by Jean Cocteau and Meshes of the Afternoon by Maya Deren. His oneiric worldview is apparent in his work from personal projects to commissions for many international brands, including Louis Vuitton, Fornasetti, and Kartell, to name a few. To realise his singular vision, Villoresi has recently established a production company, Fantasmagoria, where he is currently working on his first feature film: Orfeo (Orpheus), which will be an adaptation of Dino Buzzati’s 1969 work Poema a fumetti (Comic Book Poem)–considered one of the first graphic novels ever published, a reworking of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice set in a partly imaginary and fantastical Milan.

Treading the liminal spaces between dreams and reality, the surrealist quality of Villoresi’s work could be attributed to his predominant use of pre-cinematic devices such as zoetropes and praxinoscopes. It is perhaps these analogic techniques that give his films a quality that feels bizarre yet recognisable, bordering on a sense of unease that is heightened by the production design. The elaborate scenography and sinister but playful quality of his works are highlighted in the display at the IULM which includes kinetic installations like Virgilio’s Zoetrope, a device that produces the illusion of movement, here animating a head splitting open and eyes dancing within a hollow skull; Click Clack and Faire de son mieux, both of which use a flipbook technique to create movement; commercials made by him using stop motion technique; and miniature set designs for Piazza Milano, an urban theatre inspired by De Chirico, which again, underscores the strangeness and otherworldliness at play in his work. It is almost a reiteration that one is not at home here, that each shadow might hold new secrets.

Music videos based on optical illusions like Golden Light for the Japanese-Italian-American band Blonde Redhead will also be on display for visitors. The exhibition promises a peek into the eerie, amusing and utterly fascinating world of Villoresi, with installations that while they make one uncomfortable, you cannot look away from. Each element of the showcase brings to life an aspect of what makes the Italian designer's work so unique; in which objects, installations, music videos, and commercials are populated by figures and forms which merge the past with the present, analogic procedures with modern technologies, stop motion with digital software.

An official press release states that Villoresi is “something more than an artist,” overseeing every aspect of his productions, from the characterisation to the cinematography. Canova reiterates in the fanzine accompanying the exhibition at IULM University, that he is “one who works with his hands, who shapes his fantasies with the matter, who cares for details with the maniacal passion of a Renaissance cabinetmaker.” The bizarre, the otherworldly, the absolutely manic but somehow familiar that is the result of painstaking attention to detail is what makes his work so engrossing—where for a second you think, oh this is real, until the heel starts turning, until you see a shadow; until you realise that the trees have eyes. In Villoresi’s hands, the everyday turns sinister, into the stuff of dreams, a phantasmagoric realm of shadow and light.

The best way to view his work, as Villoressi has mentioned in a previous interview with STIR, is “to play with me and the imagery I create in each work. So, the best way to understand my work is to let me guide you and lose control. It’s a kind of mental journey through my world, based on the concrete and material representation of dreams.” Until we immerse ourselves into the Milan of Villoresi’s dreams with Orfeo, the exhibition and the wonders it holds should suffice. Opening on April 15, 2024, as part of this year's Fuorisalone in the Exhibition Hall at IULM, the showcase is curated by Giulio Bursi and Atelier Impopulaire, and will remain open to visitors until May 15, 2024.

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.