A number of smaller group shows popped up during this year’s Milan design week, showcasing a combination of emerging and established designers’ work in intimate venues.
Organised by curators, galleries or the designers themselves, small group exhibitions can offer some respite from the sometimes “overwhelming” environment of the larger collectible design shows hosted in Milan.
According to organisers from the Deoron, Comune and Good Selection exhibitions, small group shows can offer a more dynamic experience for visitors, as well as the opportunity to meet the makers behind the objects.
For the designers themselves, it creates an opportunity to blend their work and their personal audiences, who may be attracted to similar aesthetics.
“We don’t want to be cattle designers”
In some cases, they also make it possible for emerging designers to display their work during such traffic-heavy design weeks, with some noting costs associated with larger fairs can reach upwards of tens of thousands of dollars.
For Good Selection, its “for us by us” group show format also aimed to address larger issues that plague the design industry, such as exploitative practices from galleries or curators that “milk” designers to produce product.
“We don’t want to be cattle designers,” Good Selection co-founder and designer Lucas Zito told Dezeen. “We don’t want to be like a herd of talents which are essentially milked to produce quick product.”
“We are basically what constitutes the new generation of designers, we’ve all graduated together. So, [if] we are the next front, we thought instead of everybody going in all directions, let’s unite and also show curators what we can do.”
The Theater of Things
Curator Delvis(Un)Limited presented The Theater of Things at Via Fatebenefratelli 9. The exhibition mimicked a domestic apartment, including a central bed by Brussels design group Espace Aygo, a tiled bookshelf and mirror by Austrian designer Laurids Gallée and rubber and resin furniture by New York designers Rich Aybar and Objects of Common Interest.
As part of the domestic theme, the seven participating designers each took a turn sleeping overnight in the bed over the duration of the show, with the option to leave the curtains open or closed to passersby.
Comune
Polish design exhibitor Comune presented its second group show in Milan at local architecture office Superspatial, which included furniture and objects by designers such as Jacob Steinberg, Maria Gil, and Jorge Suárez-Kilzi.
“When you are a designer, you can talk about your work,” Comune co-founder Jakub Szkaradek told Dezeen on the benefits of smaller group shows.
“When you don’t talk about your design, it’s a flat experience [for visitors]. When they don’t have any connection with designers or makers, it’s stupid. It’s stupid when you don’t talk about the design with the designer.”
Convey
Curated by Simple Flair, the third edition of design show Convey was held in a series of galleries in Porta Venezia. The show focuses on presenting established and emerging design brands in a market-like set-up, with both “a cultural and commercial purpose,” said Simple Flair co-founder Riccardo Crenna.
Among international brands such as Acerbis, Under, and IPA Porcellane, this year’s iteration also presented a “guest designer” concept, which was a room styled with tables and stools among mustard yellow curtains by New York design studio Sunfish.
Deoron
Digital collectible design platform Deoron presented its first in-person design show in a subterranean parking garage at Via Paolo Frisi, where works by radiator designers Tubes, smoking brand Weed’d and design studio Studio Booboon sat on metal display units in front of a large speaker unit by Matéo Garcia Audio.
“If you have the curation and you trust the curation, or the platform that puts everything together, you get a synergy between all [the designers],” said Deoron organiser Fabio Colturri.
“Each designer invites their own audiences, and if the products are aligned, it’s better for everyone.”
Good Selection
Founders and designers Lucas Zito and Marika Caputo presented their first Milan iteration of group show Good Selection in a former furniture factory building tucked away in an alley in Varedo.
Created in reaction to a negative experience with a Parisian gallery, Zito and Caputo brought together pieces by their community from school years at Central Saint Martins, Design Academy Eindhoven and others, organising the show largely by themselves in the hopes of making it more accessible for emerging designers to showcase their work.
This included the ability to exchange creative services, such as photography, and organising group shipping to reduce overseas costs, for instance.
Boon Editions and A-N-D
Parisian gallery Boon Editions and Vancouver-based lighting design studio A-N-D presented a show of collectible design throughout two levels of a former bank at Via San Vittore al Teatro, including in the defunct vaults.
“Alcova almost guarantees traffic and exposure, but it can feel a bit overwhelming sometimes,” designer Jialun Xiong told Dezeen, who presented furniture alongside designers including Tom Hancocks and Cal Summers.
“When I received the special invitation from Boon Room and saw the venue – an old bank building with a hidden vault – I almost immediately said yes. The space had such a distinct voice and character that I knew the concept would become something unique.”
Strata
Belgian designers Middernacht & Alexander, Linde Freya Tangelder and Tim Vranken came together for Strata, a group show located in the Fondazione Prada district in a renovated 1949 industrial building.
Placed between semi-transparent dividers, the exhibition showcased the “overlaps and differences” between the designers’ works, which included blue-toned stools made from recycled steel by Middernacht & Alexander and a wooden daybed by Vranken.
Milan design week took place from 7 to 13 April 2025. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.
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