Event Details

The 7th edition of the Isola Design Festival, organized by the digital and physical design platform Isola, will welcome visitors during Milan Design Week, from 18 to 23 April 2023. Multiple venues within and beyond the Isola Design District will host more than 50 exhibitions and installations, lively events and a series of talks, involving almost 300 international designers, design studios, creators, and manufacturers.
 
Isola’s founders call on all designers and studios to implement a concrete change in their modus operandi, bringing them closer to the concept of regeneration while rethinking and overcoming the mere exploited sustainable design thinking. They explain the theme through a clear manifesto and call to action, rallying all members of their community to think past the mere concept of sustainability.
 
Collective exhibitions, special collaborations, and events will invigorate the district in parallel with seven shows curated by Isola’s curatorial team guided by Juan Torres, and two guest curators, Tellurico for Take Care!, and Ghassan Salameh for Under Design Lebanon:
 
Circolare – The Circular Village
Hosted in the scenic Regione Lombardia, Circolare – The Circular Village showcases natural raw materials, biomaterials, and products made with natural resources or industrial waste, with a minimum environmental impact in terms of production.
 
Tools & Crafts
Tools & Crafts, at Fondazione Riccardo Catella, hosts young talents and a new generation of artisans that combine traditional expertise with innovative and experimental techniques to create contemporary and collectible design pieces.
 
Take Care! Of your mind, body, and environment
Curated and with the set-up designed by the multidisciplinary design studio Tellurico, at Stecca3, is an immersive show exhibiting projects focused on tackling contemporary issues that cover both the social and individual spheres.
 
Isola Design Gallery
The 4th edition of Isola Design Gallery, at Via Pastrengo 14, celebrates unique and handcrafted products, collectible design that tells a story, customizable pieces that grant an experience, and contemporary products inspired by everyday life.
 
Under Design Lebanon
Commissioned by Isola Design Group, curated by Ghassan Salameh and hosted by the association VIAFARINI at via Farini 35, Under Design Lebanon shows a realistic mapping and projection on the currently still functioning bodies under the exceptional conjunction of social, political and economic crises that Lebanon is undergoing.
 
Rising Talents
For this year’s edition of Rising Talents, Isola is hosting a selection of experimental and inspiring artists and designers at Via Confalonieri 21. Curator Wisse Trooster selected 5 alumni from the Design Academy Eindhoven bringing to Milan their unique methods of expression through the craft medium.
 
Innovation for Living
Lastly, Isola enlarges its borders reaching a new area of Milan, the Certosa District: here, in collaboration with Designtech and DesignWanted, it co-curates Innovation for Living, an exhibition promoting projects that investigate the integration of advanced technology into furniture and architecture to bring innovative solutions to life.
 
Guest Exhibiton and Intsallations 
Isola joins forces with institutions, academies, design collectives and studios to engage visitors with various design interventions scattered around the Isola Design District, among them:
 
Abracadabra at Via Pastrengo 15
Art of Possibility by Portugal Ceramics, at ZonaK,
BEHIND THE IMPOSSIBLE, at the Fonderia Napoleonica Eugenia
Belgian Design Pavilion at Via Cola Montano 13
Belonging: A Modern Fairytale at Via Pastrengo 12
Beyond Materials at Key Gallery
Enrico Pellizzoni at Via Angelo della Pergola 3
Sama Studio Designs at Via Vincenzo Civerchio 2
Sottocassa by Paolo Marasi hosted at Spaces Isola
And more