House of Creatures exhibition brings together design misfits in Milan
A misbehaving chair by Lara Bohinc sits side-by-side with Juicy Marbles' meat-free steak in House of Creatures, an exhibition of Slovenian work at Milan design week.
Presented by Slovenia's Centre for Creativity and curated by an international team, House of Creatures features work from 10 of the country's contemporary design practices and is part of the showing at design platform Alcova.
The connecting thread weaving the pieces together is that they are all, in some way, non-conforming. Some represent disciplines like graphic design or food design that are outside the usual Milan design week milieu, while others are unusually conceived or created, such as in Toasted Furniture's literally toasted homeware.
Several of the designers created new works for the exhibition. Bohinc's latest chair, called the Compulsion Chair, is a play on her signature bulbous forms, but with one chair uncomfortably protruding through another – stacked, but not functionally so.
One chair is made of metal and the other wood, with no visible joins, adding to the visual puzzle of the design.
Co-curator Sera Malèna Eravci describes it as "a chair sitting on a chair" and considers it an example of the aesthetic strangeness that exists the exhibition.
Toasted Furniture represents oddity of process with their Toasted Vessels, which are made by heating up plastic waste so it is soft enough to shape by hand, putting an unusual spin on recycling.
Graphic designer Nejc Prah created two Milan-themed prints for his series on vegetables – each one only available while the plant it portrays is in season. While. design studio Soft Baroque added two pieces to its Soft Metal furniture series, where objects emerge from cuts made in 10-millimetre aluminium plate.
Fashion designer Sari Valenci added to her series of subversive hot pink inflatable garments, while multimedia artist Dan Adlešič continued his otherworldly, LED-lit Flower Lamps, including one with a delicate lampshade made of dehydrated sausage casing.
But the most attention-grabbing object in the exhibition may be Juicy Marbles' plant-based meat, which looks uncannily like the real thing and comes from an industry not usually represented at design week.
"This is, like, the pinnacle of misbehaving," said co-curator Vid Žnidaršič. "They destabilise all the boundaries of steaks."
The curators were keen to show design as a holistic practice, Žnidaršič added, going beyond the making of beautiful and functional objects.
"Food is designed, brands are designed, and I think Juicy Marbles are really a good representative of both of these things," he said.
"How do you package something that potentially also contributes to sustainability and to the way we're going to live together? How do we tackle environmental crisis? Well, maybe we need to rethink how we eat. And this is a design process in itself."
House of Creatures' objects were presented on foam plinths, putting a slight twist on conventional exhibition displays. The softness of the foam allows the weight of the objects to be felt, as the blocks sink and slump underneath them.
The curators intended that the blocks function almost like furniture for their objects, enhancing the sense of them being "creatures".
Much like how the toys in the film Toy Story react when a human enters the room, Žnidaršič explained, he hopes that visitors will get the idea that objects might start moving when their back is turned.
In addition to Žnidaršič and Eravci, the curatorial team includes Ryan Barriball, Urša Gantar, Tine Tribušon and Gašper Uršič. They were chosen by the Centre for Creativity, a Slovenian goverment- and EU-funded platform that presents annually at Milan design week.
Elsewhere in Milan, design platform S—3 is staged an exhibition rethinking the chopstick, while Murano glass studio 6AM is showed its creations in an abandoned pool complex.
House of Creatures is on from 19 to 26 April 2026 at Alcova at the Baggio Military Hospital, Via Giovanni Labus 10, 20147 Milan, Italy. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.
Exhibition photography by Piercarlo Quecchia. Studio photography by Klemen Ilovar
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