Next - Future of design

The MAG 12/22

REPORTAGE by Cristina Morozzi

The Altagamma Foundation – the Italian luxury brands committee of companies in a variety of fields – organizes an annual event which presents forecasts for future trends, with panels of experts from various sectors. This past 27 October, at the Next edition hosted at the Triennale di Milano, the main theme was the future of design.

The event concept was decided by event curator Beatrice Leanza, who was recently appointed as the new director of the Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts in Lausanne and whose term will begin in 2023. She previously directed Lisbon’s MAAT (Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology), was the creative director of Beijing Design Week, and co-founded The Global School.

Davide Quayola - Nature / Process / Synthesis at CUBO UNIPOL – Bologna, Italy

The event focused on a variety of keywords: relationality, emotion/resonance, political activism, critique/sense making, algorithmic culture, swarm intelligence, soft robot, synthetic mind, good living, interdependence, ethnocomputing, cosmology, Pacha Mama, post human folklore, deep green, slow tech, bio intelligence, machine dreaming, metrofitting, post dualist, systematic remake, ecological resilience, biophilic humanism, futurverse, speculative architecture, planet city, food freedom, participation, cultural convergence, re-earthing, decolonize and relocalize.

Erez Nevi Pana, Dead Sea exhibition


Speakers at the event included artist Quayola, who uses technology to explore the tension and balance between real and artificial, figurative and abstract, old and new; Brendan Mcgetrick, creative director of the Dubai Museum of the Future; Israeli designer Erez Nevi Pana, who is a vegan, animal lover, and explores alternative natural materials with a low environmental impact; Aric Chen, general and artistic director of Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam; Matteo Vignoli, founder of the Future Food Institute; and Lonneke Gordijn from the Dutch art and design studio Drift.