Every year installations by Lexus during the Fuorisalone tell emotional visual stories with the contribution of top names of architecture and design. The car exists and doesn’t, revealing itself by means of symbols and representations of movement and of fluidity close to contemporary arts. The last performance, a show of dance, lights and technology, curated by studio Rhizomatiks, at Superstudio during the last Design Week, provided a unique and unforgettable experience. 

In the past thirty years, the automotive world has undergone a sensational transformation, making the creative element that was hidden behind the project part visible: industrial processes, social changes, new driving systems, a vision of motorized vehicle not as a symbol status anymore, still testimony of lifestyle but first of all an “aware object”. Design not as an aesthetic symbol element anymore but as research mainstay...

Her first approach to design was as a recent graduate at the inauguration of Design at Superstudio right beside Giulio Cappellini, who had sensed her talent. Step by step Ilaria Marelli has entered among the established contemporary designers keeping her fresh and curious approach to all the experiences that this entails, from the design of the object to the installations to the art direction, also touching fashion.

In your initial contact with Superstudio Design you were together with Cappellini for the first exhibition. What do you remember about that experience?
I remember perfectly well when we came to see the space - I was super adrenaline, it seemed to me an exciting challenge, many colleagues instead said "Giulio is crazy-how do you now two months from the Salone to put everything prepared back in play! "...well, he was right! Rivers of people in an area until then unknown to most, a wide-ranging setting and… there were also my first products! I remember the photo for the press together with Morrison, Wanders and Bouroullec, as if we were "au pair" designers, while I was a young graduate at the first approach to design… I still get excited about it!...

The first woman to enhance Polish design outside the borders of her Poland, her mentor was Alessandro Mendini with whom she has worked and collaborated for a long time. To the work of designer, sculptress, art-director she alternates the curatorship of exhibitions, such as those dedicated to his master in Poznam in 2004 on the occasion of the entry of Poland into the European Community and in 2014 in Wroclaw in the year in which it was the Capital of European Culture. At Superstudio she arrived in 2011 and many more times.

Dorota between Poland and Italy, how did this happen?
My studio has been located on the Alzaia del Naviglio Grande in Milan for years, but I arrived in the city over twenty years ago for an internship in the Mendini Atelier. I studied in Poland, at the University of Art in Poznań, Faculty of Design and Interior Architecture with a thesis on Biodesign. I won three awards for the best degree and so I had the opportunity to go abroad to deepen my studies. I chose Italy, for its cultural wealth, its ancient history, the beauty of its landscape of its traditions and its people. I traveled around Italy and landed in Rome, for me the most beautiful city in the world with its squares, fountains, gardens, with the wings of angels in the paintings and sculptures of Ponte dell'Angelo...

He is the undisputed ambassador of Italian design and style in the world. Architect, designer, curator, he launched many young creatives who have now become international stars. With the Cappellini company he produced iconic pieces, still today "long sellers".

He is the art director of Superdesign Show and curator of SuperCampus who will present at Superstudio during the design week 2021.
Cappellini tells us in video how the Covid emergency has in fact created a new way of imagining and inhabiting space, of living and communicating. Renewed habits, smart working, an unprecedented concept of time that we will find in the SuperCampus project, with the best Italian and international design.

Watch the full video on Superstudio Tweb Youtube channel : youtu.be/nZYy4hCViho