Can We Make Fuller Use Of Ephemeral Things?

Formafantasma -The Amsterdam-based studio has set a new course exploring the environmental impact of temporary installation and exhibition design

- Rosa Bertoli

In just over a decade, Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin, of Amsterdam-based studio Formafantasma, have developed a powerful design language based on social, political and ethical themes, combined with diverse historical references and topped off with a sublime multidisciplinary aesthetic. Every project from the Italian pair has made us reconsider how we consume, produce, design and relate to objects and manufacturing. It’s a career trajectory that makes them a natural candidate for Re-Made.

This year, the studio’s interest shifted towards exhibition design and temporary installations, a new direction that they first explored with a set creation for the Rijksmuseum’s exhibition ‘CaravaggioBernini. Baroque in Rome’, and later through their own solo show, ‘Cambio’, at London’s Serpentine Galleries. They have also been commissioned to work on the design of exhibitions coming up next year at Rome’s Palazzo delle Esposizioni, exploring the relationship between science and art, and at Utrecht’s Centraal Museum, focusing on the idea of the garden.

So it felt appropriate to enlist the studio to also create the set in which Wallpaper* Re-Made will be presented next year in Milan. Though it’s still rather early to make concrete plans for the design of the space, we have spent the past few months in discussion with Trimarchi and Farresin, conversations that have allowed us to delve deep into the pair’s wider design approach.