STILL NOW. The Dinner

During Milan Design week in April of 2023, l presented a self-initiated solo exhibition, STILL NOW. The Dinner, at the 15th century Villa Mirabello Foundation. STILL NOW served as a culmination and retrospective of my multidisciplinary research practice to date. It was held as part of Fuorisalone, the set of events distributed in different areas of Milan on the same days as the annual Salone Internazionale del Mobile.

Milan Design Week, 2023

STILL NOW. The Dinner consisted of a long table set with a host of recognizable everyday wares and objects coated in flocked ultramarine, exemplifying the beauty inherent in the different forms. The exhibition featured Fferrone Design glassware collections and designed objects within an imaginative interpretation of a formal dinner where inspirations from Renaissance banquets, still life paintings of the 1600s, and contemporary art references come together to explore themes of memory, emotion, and sustainability. The display unfolded in a monochromatic installation where everyday objects, enveloped in an iconic ultramarine hue, are distilled down to the essence of their form and arranged to explore the idea trionfi (triumphs)—fanciful sugar sculptures made to dazzle the eyes of banquet-goers during the Renaissance. The Fferrone glassware, at once classic, contemporary, and futuristic, punctuated the volumetric blue tablescape. The supersensual mise-en-scène formed an unambiguous representation of neo-grannyism, a theoretical concept that I developed to explore memory, form, and revalorization—to emphasize the ability of good design to connect past and present and to transcend obsolescence.

STILL NOW. The Dinner is an example of how my research practice draws on various disciplines to propose new concepts realized through installation, exhibit design, and object design.

Ultramarinus: Memories of the future

From this historical study, a collaboration with photographer Jonathan Allen led to Ultramarinus: Memories of the future, a series of contemporary still life photographs. These ethereal images highlight the formal qualities of the glassware set off by the monochromatic forms of the everyday objects, inviting us to look at objects differently, through a narrative of beauty and form, reiterating the value of timeless design that translates into a more conscious use and valorization of the objects that surround us. The photographic series takes its name from the Latin word ultramarinus, meaning 'beyond the sea' as the intense blue pigment derived from the powder of ground lapis lazuli was imported to Europe by Italian traders during the 14th and 15th centuries from what is now known as Afghanistan.