Tortona Design Week, the hub of creative and experimental design of the new generations

Creating new values, engaging and educating. With Future to Share, the 2023 edition of Tortona Design Week focused on the new generations and the rediscovery of creative and experimental design: promoting innovation and creativity means starting today to build a future of sharing and inclusiveness.

The event gathered more than 90 thousand visitors with a strong attendance of students from China, Japan and Eastern Europe. Not only spectators, young people were protagonists of this edition. Just think of the interactive installation by UMPRUM - The Academy of Arts, Architecture & Design of Prague - able to combine design and music; Arrange the flow - The attitude for the future, the project based on the relationship between input and output by Keio SDM - Keio University Graduate School of System Design and Management - and finally, the initiative THE COLOUR SQUAD - Designing Tomorrow Together by YOOX, which transformed the underground space in the heart of the Design District (via Tortona 32) into a blank canvas ready to be filled through the performances of artists and visitors.



Aiming to offer the public a new perspective on sound and musical instruments, UMPRUM's interactive project in collaboration with Product Design Studio combined the study of music theory with the exploration of sound design forms. The result was the creation of acoustic instruments such as Miloslav Chytil's organ, constructed from various plastic waste pipes tuned to musical tones and powered by an ordinary workshop compressor. Through UMPRUM's immersive installation, visitors were able to listen to the musical instruments, play with sounds, combine them and compose their own melody.



Considering life as a system, today's output becomes tomorrow's input. Based on this premise, Keio SDM developed Arrange the flow-The attitude for the future, a project designed to contribute to the growth and improvement of healthy daily habits. Protagonists of the exhibition: Akatsuki, a product that can promote self-acceptance by observing a sheet of paper containing one's unresolved thoughts dissolve into water; BITE MAPPING, a tool designed to encourage the habit of healthy eating by associating the experience of the pleasure of chewing with the appearance of a starry sky on one's plate; and finally Scentignal, a phone through which to exchange scents, encouraging each other to undertake and continue olfactory training.



Also interpreting the theme Future to Share according to their own artistic sensibilities were artists, writers and creators. With THE COLOUR SQUAD - Designing Tomorrow Together by YOOX, the Torneria in Via Tortona 32 was transformed into a true hub of creativity where anyone could explore and experiment with colors, shapes and designs to tell their vision of the world. Spokespeople for new perspectives on the issues most dear to the new generations were: Domenico Formichetti, a designer born in 1993 and founder of Formy Studio; Disegnetti Depressetti, a young 1994 illustrator from Vicenza, now an adopted Londoner; and finally influencer, youtuber, tiktoker and gamer, born in Rome in 1999, Tancredi Galli - known as SighTanc.

An edition marked by music, art and fashion, dominated by the synesthesia of the senses and the sharing of visual, auditory and olfactory sensations. With the desire to tell and promote a young and fresh design, open to experimentation and research, Tortona Design Week is once again confirmed as a place of learning and building change through design with a strong social dimension, capable of enriching, coloring and improving everyday life.