Love Letters: An Exhibition and Fundraiser for Milan Design Week 2023 Presented by 5VIE

curation   •   exhibition   •   philanthropy

On the occasion of Milan Design Week 2023, the city’s lauded 5VIE design district presented Love Letters, a special exhibition and fundraiser conceived and curated by Anava Projects’ Anna Carnick. The intimate group exhibition featured new, handcrafted pieces conceived as expressions of gratitude. The autobiographical works—composed in an array of materials and methods by rising design stars from around the globe—celebrate the designers’ virtuosity and personal stories, while also honoring persons who’ve made a significant impact on the makers’ world views. Collectively, the objects serve as poetic symbols of the effect we have on one another.

In parallel, a fundraiser was organized to support local nonprofit Progetto Arca’s important work providing housing, psychological support, language courses, legal advice, and more to displaced and refugee women and children in Milan.

Participating designers included Agustina Bottoni (Buenos Aires and Milan), Eve De Haan (London), ibiyanε (Martinique), Ahryun Lee (Essenbach), Xanthe Somers (London), and Maryam Turkey (New York).

Germane Barnes’ Rock | Roll: The 2022 Miami Design District Annual Commission

curation • installation • programming

We had the pleasure of curating the 2022 Miami Design District Annual Commission, a yearly event that invites creatives to reimagine the neighborhood through a public installation timed in coordination with Miami Art Week. Miami-based architect-designer Germane Barnes’ winning Rock | Roll project was conceived as a multi-scale installation drawing on the vibrant visual language of Miami Carnival to honor the BIPOC communities that have substantially contributed to Miami’s one-of-a-kind, polyethnic culture, from the city’s earliest foundations to today.

Barnes designed a series of whimsical, larger-than-life seating capsules that rock back-and-forth when activated by users and feature colorful, shaggy surfaces reminiscent of Carnival’s hallmark feathered costumes. With a nod to steel drums and the infectious joy of Soca music, he also designed brightly hued wind chimes, hundreds of which hung like melody-making ornaments in the lush native trees and palms planted throughout the neighborhood. Finally, Rock | Roll included an architectural-scale, free-floating dome recalling a giant disco ball in both form and function. Suspended far overhead and animated by light and sound, the faceted structure served as a programmatic marker to an outdoor gathering space enlivened by multiple events and Carnival-inspired playlists. On view Fall 2022 to Summer 2023, Rock | Roll was also presented at the Design Miami/ fair entrance from November 29-December 4, 2022.

The New Guard: Stories from the New World Exhibition

curation • creative advisory

As part of an ongoing initiative to support rising talent, Carpenters Workshop Gallery invited us to guest curate an exhibition of emerging designers based in the US and Caribbean. Working across a range of experimental materials and techniques, each of the selected artist-designers approaches their practice with a fresh perspective to create hand-wrought, highly sculptural, narratively driven forms. The resulting, newly commissioned work offers a snapshot of rising talent in this moment and place, emphasizing design as autobiography, designers as raconteurs, and objects as poetic artifacts of the human experience.

Featured artists-designers: Tiarra Bell, Jerome Byron, Ibiyanε, Isabella Maroon, Anubha Sood, Maryam Turkey, Susannah Weaver