Milan once again burst with creativity as it held its annual Milan Design Week or Salone del Mobile, one of the world’s most anticipated events as the most brilliant creators and innovators in fields like art, culture, fashion, architecture, and even tech converged in the Italian city.
Beyond the major design week festivities, various other adjacent design events took place simultaneously around the city. One of which is the Fuori Salone, which traces its roots back to the 1980s. Italian luxury fashion house Gucci was among the exhibitors at this year’s Fuori Salone, putting the spotlight on material that has been part of the house’s decades of legacy: bamboo.
The exhibition entitled “Gucci | Bamboo Encounters” was curated and designed by 2050+ and its founder Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli. 2050+ is an interdisciplinary studio based in Milan whose works span design, technology, politics, and the environment.
The exhibition, set in the lush and storied grounds of the 16th century Chiostri di San Simpliciano, housed works by contemporary designers and artists from across the globe, all with a central theme of reimagining bamboo. In the same way bamboo as a material reinvigorated Gucci’s design post-war, the featured artworks and design pieces showcased the same energy of innovation and design sense.
“Gucci | Bamboo Encounters” was inspired by the fashion house’s approach to craftsmanship, particularly by the Bamboo handbags they developed and made popular in the late 1940s.
Among the works showcased at the exhibition include “1802251226,” a sculpture by Swedish Chilean artist Anton Alvarez. Through the sculpture, which is an homage to bamboo’s shape, Alvarez highlighted both tradition and innovation.
Palestinian architect, artist, and researcher Dima Srouji, meanwhile, transformed found bamboo objects with handblown glass additions to create “Hybrid Exhalations.” Srouji is known for her work with glass, text, archives, maps, plaster casts, and film, “understanding each as an evocative object and emotional companion helping navigate cultural heritage in sites of struggle.”
In “Hybrid Exhalations,” she married the seemingly contrasting processes: the slow, meditative process of weaving bamboo baskets, and the faster, intuitive way of glassblowing. “The work brings two traditions together, combining spatial and temporal modes, slow and fast-paced, fragile and intricate. Creating a hybrid, the glass applique and the woven bamboo meet in an intuitive harmony.”
Another tribute to bamboo was seen in the series of kites made by Dutch design collective Kite Club. Called “Thank You, Bamboo,” it featured kites made of contemporary materials like ripstop nylon, plastic, and tape with bamboo, merging the classic with the current. At the core, their work for the exhibition highlighted the joy of kite-making, and how it can be enjoyed even with the simplest or most common materials.
Meanwhile, Austrian designer Laurids Gallee was inspired by the use of bamboo in scaffolding, leading him to create “Scaffolding” for the exhibition. Resin captured and framed the grace and strength of bamboo in mid-motion, as if suspended in time.
Two prized natural materials, bamboo and silk, intermingled in “Passavento” by French artist Nathalie Du Pasquier. Inspired by traditional Asian furniture, she designed a self-supporting panel akin to the traditional folding screen. The exhibition featured four panels, two of which had satin curtains printed with enlarged images of bamboo stalks, aiming to create “a deliberate contrast between the rough, somewhat wild craftsmanship of the panels and the delicate, precious quality of the silk.”
In contrast, bamboo was interpreted in aluminum creations by Korean designer and artist Sisan Lee. Lee’s work, entitled “Engraved,” was created using the aluminum casting technique, where molten aluminum is poured into a sand mold.
“As a designer born and active in Korea, Lee connected bamboo imagery with the profound sense of space in ink-wash paintings and the restrained beauty of Joseon porcelain. Believing that Korean aesthetics are realized not through ‘addition’ but through ‘subtraction,’ Lee chose to express bamboo metaphorically using relief and intaglio techniques rather than directly rendering its form.”
Lastly, the “bamboo assemblage n.1” installation by artist-designer duo Eugenio Rossi and Yaazd Contractor (collectively called the Back Studio), called saw bamboo and light intersect. The duo paired the versatile beauty of bamboo with high-tech hardware, “creating a dialogue between the past and the future.”