The Isola Design Festival will be held at Milan Design Week 2023

With the theme "Nothing Happens if Nothing Happens", the Isola Design Festival will be held face-to-face throughout the year, during Milan Design Week, Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven (Netherlands), and more recently, Downtown Design in Dubai. The festival's seventh edition will be open to the public from April 18 to 23, 2023, and involves more than 200 international designers, design studios, creators, and producers. On Thursday, March 16, 2023, from 16:00 to 18:00 at the Pernod Ricard Headquarters Italy (Via Gaetano de Castillia 23, Milan), Isola will hold a Press Conference to show the full program of the Isola Design Festival 2023.

Isola Design Festival will be held at Milan Design Week, photo by Fabiola Catalano

Founded in 2017 in Milan, the Isola Design District instantly became one of the main official areas of Milan Design Week. Looking at the exhibition's success in 2022, Isola expects 120,000 visitors to attend this year. The exhibition consists of unique and handmade products of independent designers and studios worldwide inspired by architecture, art, minimalism, and sustainability. Carrying an identity similar to blue, Isola is the world's first digital and physical platform that gives independent designers visibility, connecting them with design professionals, companies, curators, journalists, and potential clients. 

Isola Design Festival 2022, photo by Salvatore Pollara

"This year, we want to arouse creativity through the exhibitions we host and curate. Isola Design Festival will be the hub for new, collectible, circular, sustainable, and innovative design. We aim to rally all design community members, visitors, and designers alike to make something happen." Elif Resitoglu, co-founder of Isola with Gabriele Cavallaro.

From the statement and the theme of the exhibition in 2023, "Nothing Happens if Nothing Happens," the founders expect all designers and studios to come together to make changes to rethink and create sustainable designs. 

Elif Resitoglu and Gabriele Cavallaro, photo by Mauro Serra and Fabiola Catalano

The theme is also a call to action and thinks more than just the concept of sustainability. The phenomenon of the declining quality of natural resources that makes the earth's condition deteriorate is a problem behind the theme. One solution to tackling the problem is to form new guidelines for the design industry by rethinking production processes and systems, regenerating natural resources and waste, and restoring the damage we have done to our planet. The next step must be taken now because Nothing Happens if Nothing Happens.

One of the artworks and designs that will be exhibited in the work of Stephanie Blanchard (co-founder of IAMMI Studio), Colonne Gesso is a completely handmade sculpture that highlights the materials used. This work transforms material usually considered bad as plaster into a beautiful and detailed column. Stephanie will organize part of the exhibition by providing a handmade plaster mat to accentuate the unique design. In addition, another design work is to raise the upcycling design, namely the first chair.

Colonne Gesso by Stephanie Blanchard

First Chair by Stephanie Blanchard