ROCOLLECTIBLE 2025

Images courtesy of Galleria Rossana Orlandi

A Journey Between Matter, Memory and Beauty: Curated by Rossana Orlandi and Nicoletta Brugnoni

RoCollectible 2025, a modern design exhibition by Galleria Rossana Orlandi on the occasion of Milan Design Week, explores the power of materials to evoke beauty, transformation, and memories. Over 90 well-known designers and up-and-coming artists are featured in the exhibition, which is curated by Rossana Orlandi and her daughter Nicoletta Brugnoni and explores material experimentation and the conversation between the past and the future.

The Power of Tenderness, a furniture collection by Lebanese architect Aline Asmar d’Amman, emphasizes softness and culture via design. By combining books and concrete to create poetic material, the Béton Littéraire collection honors literary culture. With specially designed swivel seats made in France’s esteemed upholstery ateliers, the Georgia Conversation Lounge honors Georgia O’Keeffe’s abstract paintings. Primitive materiality and customized details are combined in the Soft Shell side and coffee tables. By fusing tailored details with primitive materiality, Asmar’s creations establish a conversation between strength and sensuality, culture and matter. Her passion for rough marble and the significance of culture in her work are both demonstrated by the collection.

To elevate and globalize the story of a new Polish craft movement, Craftica Gallery is presenting a selection of Polish artists’ creations through EMOTIONS PASSIOBURGUNDY. ARTIGIANI POLACCHI exhibition. The showcase reinterprets centuries-old techniques in a contemporary key by showcasing burgundy, a symbol of passion and sophistication. The Starak Family Foundation, which has supported Polish art and design for almost 20 years through grants, international exhibitions, and advocacy, includes the Craftica Gallery, which was established in Warsaw in November 2024.

Presented by Coulisse | INK

In his immersive installation Breaking the Code, Alessandro Ciffo uses silicone, a material he has been experimenting with for 25 years, to examine the connection between matter and perception. The installation includes an oval rug made from recycled silicone, layered silicone panels, and a four-door cabinet with the Password motif. By converting every mark and color into a visual code that alternates between abstraction and figuration, Breaking the Code challenges viewers to unravel the digital age.

Polish artist Cyryl Zakrzewski uses material transformation to create objects that breathe and change. He weaves wood and recycled plastic to create his Organoid Cabinet, Nexus Collection, and Flow Collection, which combine chaos and order. Each piece highlights the dynamism in simple furnishings and the evocation of movement, encouraging contemplation on the relationship between materials, structure, and transformation.

Giuliana Salmaso created Diasen’s ANESIS, Nature, Comfort, CorkPhilia installation, a multisensory, regenerative haven built around the biophilic cork-based finishing system CorkPhilia. The Diathonite-clad biomorphic structure leads guests on a symbolic journey of reflection and rebirth, ending with an open area that enhances physical and mental health, lowers stress levels, and reestablishes a connection to nature. Diasen’s concept of sustainable biophilic architecture is embodied in ANESIS.

The installation Pensieri Riflessi (Reflected Thoughts) by Draga & Aurel examines the conflict between matter and light, rigor and instinct, and art and design. Through the use of overlays, color mutations, and transparencies, the installation turns space into a flowing background. Viewers are invited to lose themselves in light and color as the Rescue Me cabinet, Cadre sideboard, and Phebe lamps create a dreamy dimension between awe and wonder. The artists stress how painting and design are inseparable, reflecting one another in an ongoing interplay of narratives, references, and reflections.

Brazilian designer Lucas Recchia creates sculptures by fusing modern design with handiwork. While Morfa tables accentuate oxidations and textures, his Eche sofa and armchair redefine comfort. The Cavo Table strikes a balance between weight, space, and essential forms, while his Material Distortion series investigates the fusion of metal and glass. His art investigates the combination of glass and metal.

Paul Heijnen, a Dutch designer, displays his Sculpt Chair, the result of years of material and technique research. His goal was to produce a useful item that complemented his values in design, craft, and the arts. He found a way to solidify oil paint in a matter of hours, which made it possible to layer, modify, and sculpt. This innovation made it possible to combine different materials seamlessly, producing marbled veins without the use of metalwork or ceramic kilns. The chair’s surface mimics the depth of Fordite gems and the marbled covers of old books, drawing inspiration from Mokume-gane metalwork, impressionist color schemes, and Japanese Nerikomi ceramics. The perfect place to listen to the world is created by the parabolic wings on the sides, which enhance ambient noise.

Rezina with 0.0 Design introduces Speziati, an eco-friendly lime-based interior product made from waste spice blends. This natural, aromatic paint stimulates the senses and provides a strong visual impact. The color chart blends include turmeric, ginger, cardamom, and cinnamon, bringing fresh smells into the environment. The product is designed by Stefania Vasques.

The exhibition Come Across, curated by Maria Vittoria Baravelli, features 20 sculptures and installations by South Korean artist Yong Nam Kim that blur the boundaries between the past and present by transforming traditional Korean furniture, like cabinets and containers, into works of art with philosophical and social significance. Drawing inspiration from the Eastern theory of the five elements (Oseck), the artist employs symbolic materials such as glass, which symbolizes emptiness and subtraction, and traditional Ottchil lacquer, which represents exhaustion and sacrifice. Pagoda Shred, a tower representing the change from the solidity of stone to the lightness of paper; Jang, glass cabinets engraved with natural motifs; and Pagoda Oseck, a structure of stacked glass containers, stand out among the pieces on exhibit.

With artisanal and technical assistance from Luce5, Nacho Carbonell created the Unlimited light installation in the gallery’s courtyard, which won The Art of Lighting Award 2024. The piece, which was inspired by nature, represents the cyclical nature of life, with glowing branches signifying development and change. According to Carbonell, nature is the source of all things and serves as the impetus for the emergence of new leaves each season.

The area includes a variety of items from Paola Navone OTTO Studio, the aluminum Flip chair by Ron Arad, hand-knotted rugs from Maison Rhizomes and Sara Kele, the modular Axis system covered in Corkcrete by Lapo Ciatti, the compost bin from 0.0 Design, and the famous sculptures by Benedetta Mori Ubaldini. These products demonstrate the brand’s dedication to sustainability and style, as well as the adaptability and versatility of their offerings.

The exhibition interprets everyday matter and tries out novel techniques with a focus on matter. It investigates installation routes that raise concerns about design’s future. Tree trunks that have been felled by natural disasters can be reused to create new works of art, as demonstrated by the creations of artists such as Andrea Zambelli, Alessandro Musolino, Cengiz Hartmann, Mario Trimarchi, and Giulio Iacchetti.

In 2025, Rossana Orlandi and Nicoletta Brugnoni’s global initiative RoGUITLESSPLASTIC will celebrate its seventh edition. It promotes the concepts of reusing, recycling, and upcycling—all of which are critical to thoughtful and responsible design.

Specifically, the idea of Re-use serves as a red thread connecting RoCollectible and RoGuiltlessPlastic, highlighting the importance of matter in its never-ending cycle of change.

Creative reuse is demonstrated by Polish designer Hana Vopravilova’s Leftovers, which creates glass forms using corrugated cardboard and old wooden molds, and by the 3D-printed modular furniture made with recyclable technopolymers from SSS’AA of Lugano’s CSIA and LATI Industria Termoplastici S. p.A. and Gimac. To improve sustainability and craftsmanship, the MADE Program at Accademia di Belle Arti “Rosario Gagliardi” di Siracusa employs age-old interlocking techniques on reclaimed driftwood.

In their work, Israeli artist Ori Orisun Merhav and Swedish designer Line Dansdotter Murkén are emphasizing material innovation. Rubber and steel are used to reinterpret Murkén’s bathtub as a sensory haven, and Merhav’s Insect Plantasia creates hybrid forms using natural insect polymers.