Material bar, Presenting Slovenia at the Milan Design Week
Opening: 8.4.2025
Media preview: 6.4.2025
Location: Alcova, Villa Bagatti Valsecchi
“The exhibition will be designed as a meeting point that will connect persistent, interesting, progressive, and independent Slovenian authors who work in their local environments. These exhibitors and their work are resistant to change and have a positive impact on society and the community. Through their work processes, they not only make a living, but also build and improve the world around them. The spatial set up is based on complementary actions, where each author plays their role and contributes to the common space of operation.”
MATERIAL BAR focuses on design as a holistic activity that includes work and thought processes, materials, environment, and relationships. The concept understands exhibitors as part of a community and recognizes the role of a curator as a (co)author in establishing an open, progressive, and responsible design production (and a progressive and responsible society).
A group of curators, Bor Pungerčič, Katarina Dekleva in Rok Oblak who are themselves active in the fields of design and architecture, have decided to present 11 exhibitors or collectives. Their durable practices have proven their resilience as well as their necessity by creating their communities over the years. Due to their insight, their autonomous and long-lived practices are indispensable interlocutors and protagonists in the Slovenian design ecosystem.
‘They pursue the principles of sustainability, locality, contextuality, community building and the creation of innovative answers to relevant questions – not merely with their products and materials, but also with the way they work.’
Katarina Dekleva, Rok Oblak and Bor Pungerčič, curators
The presentation will focus on the exhibitors’ working processes, which will, in turn, attract visitors to collaborate and explore. With its smells, tastes, sounds, and movement, MATERIAL BAR will address visitors on their sensory, emotional, and rational levels. In the absence of the usual exhibition posters and stickers, a written trace of the ephemeral presentation will remain in the accompanying magazine Materialist.
The MATERIAL BAR will be presented within Alcova in the historic Villa Bagatti Valsecchi in Varedo. In its seven years of operation and with over 90,000 visitors per year, Alcova has established itself as one of the key future-oriented locations of Milan Design Week, for it conceptually focuses on showcasing groundbreaking works in the design of living environments, products, systems, materials and technological innovations.
PRESENTED PRACTICES
Miha Šajina will design the soundscape for the installation. Using homemade analogue synthesizers, he will invite passersby to co-create and listen to quadraphonic sound.
Photo credits: Miha Šajina
Rok Oblak, under the name Salto Dionys currently lives and works in Ljubljana as a freelance designer in the fields of experimental design, pottery, and project management. Rok will demonstrate his own version of the clay extruding machine, making planters, espresso cups and various decorative objects.
Photo credits: Rok Oblak
The interdisciplinary collective Prostorož, which explores the shared urban space, will create a new public space on the terrace of Villa Bagatti Valsecchi, and open a discussion with organisations from the local area that are programmatically and ideologically similar.
https://www.prostoroz.org/; YouTube: Prostorož , RCERO Educational Walk
Photo credits: Amadeja Smrekar
Pjorkkala is a design collective consisting of Žan Girandon, Pia Groleger and Luka Pleskovič. Their projects emphasize experimentation and offer innovative answers to contemporary design challenges. Their water filter made of 3D printed Dodola clay will provide purified water for washing hands in a closed loop system of the central “bar”.
https://www.pjorkkala.si/
Photo credits: Pjorkkala
Pečeno pohištvo presents products made from recycled plastic, designed and manufactured by Nina Mršnik and Nuša Jelenec in a workshop in Ljubljana. Using their own machine, they ‘toast’ plastic sheets, which they then use to create small series of unique pieces. On a smaller scale, at the MATERIAL BAR, they will “toast furniture” together with the audience in Milan.
Photo credits: Nataša Košmerl
Nika Ravnik developed a design approach that enables efficient, practical, and flexible creation of wearable and useful pieces of clothing with her own method of assembling smaller pieces of fabric. She will involve her visitors in her work process of unconventional zero-waste clothing design from basic geometric textile pieces.
Photo credits: Cherie Plausteiner
Eva Pavlič Seifert and Aljaž Celarc form the artistic duo PLATEAU RESIDUE and create the project Hiša Mandrova. In their works, they seek a closer connection to nature, new ways of self-sufficiency, the use of wood and strive to create a community of like-minded people. In Milan, they will create an open learning environment in which visitors can become a part of the manual woodworking process.
Photo credits: Hisa Mandrova
Gobnjak is a small company from Ljubljana that cultivates and processes culinary and medicinal mushrooms, produces tinctures from medicinal mushrooms, educates the public about mushroom cultivation and ecology, and offers various products that help people grow mushrooms at home. It is led by the bionics engineer Rok Zalar and the MA in microbiology Primož Turnšek.
Photo credits: Arhiv Avtorja
Gaja Pegan Nahtigal focuses on the ecological potential of urban nature diversity through foraging practices. Through her brand “from Gaja”, she conducts foraging workshops, creates herbal products and participates in culinary projects. She will be teaming up with the Slovenian boutique gin producer Gin Brin (Erik Sarkič), who will distil gin from local plants harvested in the park of Villa Bagatti Valsecchi.
Photo credits: Sofie Latour
Gin Brin is a Slovenian craft gin producer specializing in creating high-quality, handcrafted gin using locally sourced botanicals. The company is committed to providing a premium product with a unique flavour that reflects the rich heritage and natural diversity of the region.
Photo credits: Gin Brin
Contact persons:
mag. Anja Zorko, Head of Center for Creativity
+386(0)1 548 42 73 I +386 41 381 858
www.czk.si I www.mao.si I www.bio.si
Mojca Zupanič, Project Manager
mojca.zupanic@mao.si / +386 41 924 515
Nastja Rožej, PR and Marketing
nastja.rozej@mao.si
Center za kreativnost / Centre for Creativity (CfC)
Muzej za arhitekturo in oblikovanje (MAO)
Rusjanov trg 7, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenija
www.czk.si