Ten cities, nine designers, one extraordinary material. This year the Alcantara–MAXXI project, now in its fifth edition, takes us around the world. With Local Icons. East/ West, designers Studio Job, Constance Guisset, Poetic Lab, Mischer’Traxler, GamFratesi, Neri&Hu, Hans Tan, Michael Young, Poetic Lab and Cosmas Gozali create iconic objects to interpret ten cities of two main geopolitical areas, in an imaginary dialogue between East and West.
Opened until 28 February, the exhibition – curated by Giulio Cappellini and Domitilla Dardi – continues on the tried-and-tested theme of memories connected with a city, of the travel souvenir. After taking in the essence of Rome in the 2015 project, this year’s exhibition embraces a wider cultural dialogue between East and West. Using Alcantara® to give shape to their visions, the designers produced a travel narrative in images and objects suggestive of Amsterdam, Paris, London, Vienna, Copenhagen, Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei and Jakarta.
In addition to the prototype designed to represent their allocated city, each artist also designed a box, a setting for their prototype. The exhibition is therefore designed as a large installation of ten boxes, a “world village” inside the museum.
