The 23rd Triennale di Milano: The works that stood out to us at this year’s international exhibition concerning the “unknown”.

Central Image: Portal of Mysteries του Emanuele Coccia | Image source: triennale.org | youtube.com

The Triennale Milano, an important institution for design in Europe and the world in general, is coming to a close on December 11th, having received positive feedback. The international art and design exhibition has once again managed to impress by presenting at Parco Sempione the modern concerns, trends and subjects examined within today’s creative fields of design, architecture, and visual and representational arts.

French Pavilion. Image © DSL Studio | Image source: archdaily.com

Entering Palazzo dell’ Arte, by Giovanni Muzio (1931), one encounters the site-specific video installation Portal of Mysteries by Emanuele Coccia, which works as an interesting reception to the 23rd International Exhibition, which already looks more like an approach to the future by a philosopher and not a designer. The title itself, “Unknown Unknowns”, suggests an introduction to the mysteries and challenges that the future holds. The interdisciplinarity character of the 23rd Triennale constitutes a platform where all cultural and humanitarian disciplines can think together and discuss burning issues, through a panorama of events and lectures-meetings.

Kere's YesterdayTomorrow. Image © DSL Studio | Image source: archdaily.com

The search for the unknown future and its approach through the creative process is not just an umbrella subject matter of yet another exhibition. On the contrary, it is something that can be traced to the core of the curatorial team itself and the specialists that make it up. In particular, the main curators of the exhibition are Ersilia Vaudo, astrophysicist and Chief Diversity Officer at the European Space Agency (ESA), and Francis Kéré, founder of Kéré Architecture and winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize 2022, the most prestigious international award in the field of Architecture. Vaudo is an atypical choice, which, however, brings together - symbolically and practically - the scientific and the creative, leaving room for criticism in both areas. Accordingly, Kéré is known for his realistic-pragmatist "maquettes", large-scale works inspired by Afrofuturism. The team includes more specialities such as philosophers, writers, urban planners, researchers, art historians and academics, contributing to a research-based interdisciplinary approach to the subject of the “unknown".

Unknown Unknowns - SOM. Image © DSL Studio | Image source: archdaily.com

The diversity of the Triennale workforce is also evident in the works presented, which are different yet related. Starting with the works of Francis Kéré, his 12m tower entitled “The Future's Present”, which is carved with modern versions of traditional design motifs from regions such as Burkina Faso, the so-called “Yesterday's Tomorrow” and “Under a Coffee Tree”, we understand the strong need to discuss the Eurocentrism typically present in such exhibitions, and that an unpredictable curatorial team combination can and should change the status-quo!

Image Source: triennale.org

Different yet related is the installation/space-configuration “il corrido rosso” by Giovanni Agosti and Jacopo Stoppa, in which the realistically rendered space of a 20th-century palazzo immerses the visitor in an architectural history that intertwines the Italian and European imaginary with science fiction. The viewer is forced to enter a deceptive condition, where history and pseudohistory lead them to reflect on the conscious and unconscious. The exit from the installation is through an Etruscan Tomb.

Image Source: triennale.org

Another prominent subject is the ecological issue through design. Ingrid Paoletti creates an Alchemical laboratory in which the viewer is invited to reflect on nature's willingness to "correct" human mistakes. The transformative alchemical -yellow- colour, a symbol of change, poses questions to which we do not yet have an answer.

Image Source: triennale.org

“Planeta Ukrain”, in the Ukrainian pavilion of the exhibition, is a multi-site project in the Triennale's internal and external spaces and it’s one of the most political works of this year's event. Curated by writer Gianluigi Ricuperati, actress Lidiya Liberman and pianist Anastasia Stovbyr, the booth presents an overview of contemporary Ukrainian culture, touching on many different creative fields within a country that is in a state of war.

Finally, the installation “Mondo Reale”, curated by Hervé Chandès and conceived by Formafantasma, is an exploration of the real world that is on the cusp of the transcendental-dreamlike. Cinema, painting, photography, design and sculpture explore in the present installation reality as a dream, emphasising the possibility of creating a collective memory through art forms and not through direct experience, perhaps thus abolishing the limits of experience in a constantly “networked” world.

Image Source: bie-paris.org

The 23rd Triennale di Milano ends in December. In its 5 month duration, "Unknown Unknowns" achieved an important and total fusion of arts and sciences, with the aim of introducing the mysteries of human civilization, substantially investigating the effects human narratives have on the present and the immediate future.