THE EUROLUCE 2023 EXHIBITIONS: ‘DAWNS. THE LIGHTS OF TOMORROW’

Text and images courtesy of Salone del Mobile.Milano

Curated by Matteo Pirola, Project from Outer Space (April 18-23, 2023). Milano

Light is not an object but a subject, whether it be natural or artificial, and is a constantly changing, astonishing atmospheric and environmental phenomenon, ripe for exploration. Where darkness begins ‒ a necessary condition for seeing light – glimmers, scintillas and pinpricks of light appear, capable of inspiring projects conjuring up constellations, planets, satellites, celestial and light bodies.

Camille Blin – Gradient, 2009 | Constance Guisset Studio – CGS, Leviosa, 2017 | Diane Thouvenin – Sun Connection, 2010 | Gionata Gatto – Perspective

The night sky with its infinity of stars and the daytime sky with its sun provide the palette with which design is experimenting. The research and works that have gone into this exhibition, a balance of technology and poetry, clearly evidence how the re-interpreted luminous objects light a pathway leading to the future. All the lamps lighting up our memory, and especially those that the contemporary “designer-astronomers” are exploring, coming up with objects that show luminous happenings, orbiting spheres, reflective surfaces, blinding eclipses, coloured dawns, celestial hues are, metaphorically, “artificial stars.”

Guillaume Simmen – Zero Luxe, 2019 | Mette Schelde – Reflect Wall Lamp & Ombre Light, 2020

“Lighting design, in our sensitive contemporary world, is a conveyor of atmospheres and symbols, permanently lit subjects in which a narrative between technology and poetry is spun between the extreme points of luminous horizons from which the objects that will illuminate the future will appear,” said Matteo Pirola.

Presented by Coulisse | INK

Installation
The exhibition is configured around the presence (or absence) of light, and its ability to change the perception of space. A fragmented floor plan maps out an internal path across spaces distinguished by different luminous atmospheres – darkness, semi-darkness, pure light and vice versa – exalting the essence of the works on show. A series of rhythmic frames forms the structure on which two coverings move, facing and unveiling each other in turn, proclaiming the substance of the materials used.

Mandalaki – Halo Horizon Halo Edition | ECAL – Chris – Kabel Blue Sky Lamp, 2014 | ECAL – Jesse Visser – Sunset Sunrise, 2019

“The structure, the coverings and the compositional logic generate an installation capable of establishing different dialogues with the light and its atmospheres,” commented the From Outer Space studio.

Studio Roso – Tube And Ball Sand Stone & Tube And Ball Portoro, 2022 | Tilen Sepic Eclipse, 2012 | mischer’traxler – Equilumen, 2015 | Marjan van Aubel – Sunne, 2020