Salone del Mobile 2021 Delivers Exactly What We’ve Been Missing

Last week, Milan, Italy, saw a whirlwind of technical innovation, high-concept storytelling, material exploration, and, perhaps most excitingly, community. An acknowledgment of ongoing isolation—and an eagerness to get back to doing things in person—ran as through lines. Exhibits focused on the sense of touch and interaction, revelations born of solitude and quiet contemplation, and our collective social, ecological, and interpersonal progress.

Here, we’ve gathered a handful of highlights from across the city that reflect a desire to reconnect.

Some Vibrant Things by Audrey Large 

Hosted at Nilufar Gallery, French designer Audrey Large’s solo show of 3D-printed sculptures, titled Some Vibrant Things, is a conceptual whiplash, toggling between allusions to the digital realm and a dashingly vibrant material reality. Large’s idea for the objects was to render her digital concepts into real-life forms, giving the physical products an air of just having stepped out from the pixelated world. At once grotesque and glamorous, the technicolor figures exist in liminal arenas of comprehension, which is precisely their intended provocation.

Much Peace, Love and Joy by SPREAD

SPREAD, the Tokyo-based design group helmed by Hirokazu Kobayashi and Haruna Yamada, brought a landscape to life with Much Peace, Love, and Joy—a fairy tale–esque installation wherein doses of color hover over a sun-soaked setting. Each petal-like piece is torn by hand and tactfully attached to netting that all but disappears against the landscape.

The installation was hosted by Alcova, a nomadic platform for art and design that, this year, took up residence in an abandoned military site-turned-overgrown park on the outskirts of Milan.

Peel Vase Series by Marcela Trejo and Alyssa Lewis of Studio Block