Designers and installations: INTERNI CRE-ACTION

The great INTERNI Exhibition-Event, which will be held from 7 to 17 April at the University of Milan, was born with the aim of activating and multiplying connections and relationships: a virtuous system between the protagonists of creativity, companies, distribution networks that have the essential need to connect people and ideas from different places and cultures. In collaboration with companies, multinationals, start-ups and institutions, 40 creative proposals were created (installations, exhibitions, design islands, micro-architectures and macro-objects, all site-specific) to interpret the theme of this edition of the exhibition. INTERNI invited more than 50 designers to explore how design and architecture can translate the present, using both concrete and metaphorical materials with the aim of bringing out the role of the project as a means of expressing individual identity and representation. Design in CRE-ACTION is not just aesthetics or innovation, but a conscious act that seeks to decipher the present day and propose alternative ways of inhabiting the world. A design gym of experimentation, in which different disciplines connect to each other to offer an experience in which the visitor is not just an observer, but an active part of a scenario that challenges perception and opens new perspectives on the world.

The Design Islands at the University of Milan

In the spaces of the University of Milan, a series of impressive immersive and experimental installations will come to life, designed by renowned architecture and design studios in collaboration with prestigious companies, which, through sensory journeys, offer food for thought on themes such as sustainability, innovation and interaction between man and the environment.

In addition to the installations, in the spaces of the Statale, we find numerous Design Islands that decline the theme of CRE-ACTION in an original way.

On the occasion of the release of the new episodes of Grey's Anatomy, DISNEY+ brings You're My Person to the INTERNI exhibition-event. The bench, a recurring symbolic element in the series, is transformed into an ethereal, emotional sculpture, almost suspended in space. Enriched by a writing that lights up when two people sit on it, the project intends to explore the theme of interpersonal relationships.

Among the installations that investigate the relationship between the natural and the artificial, there is the work Extraceleste, the robot-Angelus bearer of a message of love, designed by Marco Nereo Rotelli with Elital and Riccardo Valentini for Ever In Art®. Thanks to the collaboration with Luca Andrea Marazzini, the robotic sculpture gives poems generated by AI: symbolic “poetic flowers” ​​of glass, made by Gala Rotelli.

Claudio Larcher and Astroterra Collective for NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti with ASU -  The Design School at Arizona State University have created Design for the Moon. Through an evocative dialogue between speculative objects and future sustainable habitats for the Moon, visitors are invited to reflect on the adaptability of design in extraterrestrial contexts by exploring the boundary between reality and imagination.

In the Sottoportico del Cortile d’Onore there are works that explore and redefine the relationship between man and the environment, between natural and artificial, between past and future through symbolic architecture. In this context, the element of the mirror returns as the main tool of expression and experimentation for artists and architects, who use it to transform the exhibition space and generate new perceptive dimensions. Riflessi Sul Mare by Christian Grande for Besenzoni is a work that is divided into mirrored platforms that emerge from a symbolic sea. Each of these represents the iconic element of the Besenzoni universe. The play of light and reflections recalls the movement of the waves. A project capable of merging art and industry, reaffirming the company's philosophy in promoting innovation that respects the marine environment.

Even in the People lounges of Dainelli Studio, created by BI.CI. Progetti e Arredamento, the mirror becomes the ideal medium for exploring the relationship between architecture, art and philosophy. Placed specularly on the sides of the Cortile d’Onore, two large volumes are reflected in infinite versions and visions: among themselves, with people and with the surrounding space. The aim of the project is to merge the multiple individual realities into a collective system.

The theme of reflection also finds expression in another work curated by the Press Room of Dainelli Studio (Leonardo and Marzia Dainelli), created thanks to the contribution of Status Contract and Gruppo Bonomi Pattini. Divided into the two rooms overlooking the Cortile d’Onore, Ri-Flettere develops around three key elements: colour, steel and portals, representing a stimulus to question one’s own perception of space and of oneself. 

The same elements, combined in different ways, can generate new visions of space and the presence of man within it. The exhibition continues with the work Layers by Silvio De Ponte for Espositiva Srl, Idealverde Srl, Living Surfaces - Claudio Ubertini. A suspended natural landscape, reversed 180 degrees, where design and architecture exploit the senses to build an intimate and suspended environment through the manipulation of light, matter, perception and emotion.

Re-Flections, curated by the Italian stylist Ludovica Diligu for Labo.Art, is an installation that dissolves the boundaries between fashion, design, art and perception, inviting a deep reflection on our relationship with the image, on self-awareness and on the evolution of one's style.

Genesi is the work that the Three-Year Course in Interior Design and Architecture for Accademia IUAD brings to the stage for this edition. Thanks to the support of the architect Salvatore Colasanto and the company Ceramica Solimene, the installation tells a journey between past and future, questioning the role of craftsmanship in responding to ecological challenges and the ability of beauty to generate sustainability.

LaFranca curated by Simona Ottieri for Fondazione per l’Infanzia Ronald for McDonald Italia exhibits a padded armchair, made by Dàmeda, designed to be a locus amoenus where one can take refuge from the frenzy of everyday life and free oneself from emotional stress.

Another seat not far away, made by Marco Merendi and Diego Vencato for Gypsum, metaphorically welcomes all the travellers of our time. The Traveller’s armchair is the story of an Italian production reality that opens up to the world and enriches itself thanks to dialogue with other cultures.

Shards of Infinity curated by Danilo Ramazzotti for NovaBell responds to the theme of the exhibition with an idea inspired by the poetics of the territory. Three monoliths, echoing 2001: A Space Odyssey, emerge from the ground with multiple facets. A journey through materials and lands capable of combining the creative, stylistic and design potential of craftsmanship with industrial production.

Viruta Lab for Tile of Spain presents The Light In The Darkness: the representation of rebirth after the environmental catastrophe of Valencia, which metaphorically materializes in a light that illuminates the darkness.

I Feel Cool, created by Pablo Dorigo, Genny Canton Studio and ABS Group for MCZ Group is a sensory experience that redefines the concept of climate comfort, playing on the contrast between hot and cold, light and matter, technology and nature. The load-bearing body of the installation is made with the beMatrix® system and the structure is in recycled and recyclable aluminum, removable and re-settable. An invitation for the future to rethink the concept of home and well-being, between innovation, aesthetics and sustainability.

The work Horizon Awakening by Beko Design Studio (Beko Europe) for Whirlpool also responds to this vision, revealing how new-generation household appliances can offer concrete solutions for an increasingly sustainable lifestyle. A promise for a future in which aesthetics and sustainability coexist in full harmony, and an invitation to the community to move towards a more responsible future.

The Plume Zero-G table, born from the collaboration between Quarella and Bizzotto Italia and produced by Danese Milano, interprets an abstract and symbolic idea of ​​design: the absence of gravity. The concept of Zero-G, like the state experienced by astronauts in space, becomes a metaphor for the balance between lightness and strength, between matter and visual suspension. The work, designed by KKAA – Kengo Kuma and Associates, is composed of small interlocking elements in agglomerates of Quarella marble and quartz recovered from waste from the stone industry.

Part of a larger project, that of the Museum of Unnatural History on which Dario Ghibaudo has been working since 1990, is Il grande pesce bianco, created by the artist himself for Galleria De Ambrogi. The marine sculpture, in recycled plastic, uses irony to analyze society, its contradictions and its discomforts.

A red ball of pulsating light, crossed by two intersecting knitting needles, is the symbol of work and, therefore, of creation. WORK by Federica Marangoni, an internationally renowned Venetian artist and designer (represented by the C|E Contemporary gallery in Milan), combines the tensions of the human condition and actions to improve it, through a powerful metaphor. Light, always free, lights up thoughts and questions what tools men and women can still have, today, to improve their condition in the world. The answer is work: a creative, intelligent and conscious tool. Neon gives strength to the red threads, making them powerful and current. Work and creation merge, transforming into creativity thanks to art.

Diseño Argentino is an audiovisual platform that aims to represent the Argentine design ecosystem, emphasizing the importance of the culture of design within the national culture. Created thanks to the partnership between private entities and government institutions, the work brings together the designers participating in the Salone Satellite and the FuoriSalone: ​​Bilu, I Wish, Konqrit, Mínimo Iluminación, Magdalena Jenik, FIUMINE, Cindy Lilen Studio, BLAU, Aldana Lorenzo and DArA perception by the architect Julio Oropel. Framing the screen is the site-specific installation by IOUS Studio, founded by Sol Sanchez Cimarelli and Agustín Ros: created with the technical collaboration of Nagami, it investigates the relationship between territory, perception and transformation. The project is inspired by the dichotomies of the Argentine landscape and is based on a game of reflections in which reality and illusion converge in a dynamic sequence.

At the North Portal of the University of Milan, In-Between Worlds by David Lopez Quincoces and Francesco Meda for HD Surface is exhibited, which through the intertwining of matter and color creates a dialogue with the existing architecture, transforming the place into a symbolic passage that leads to an evolving sensorial experience. Going up the steps, the passage space becomes a chromatic experience, with the gradient that changes based on the light. The absolute protagonist of the installation is the Argille collection by HD Surface, a completely natural covering capable of giving shape to a delicate and immersive transition of colors, in which the surface comes to life.