Home Life
Design Canberra Festival, Australia

The home – the place of intimacy and daily habits – is part of a constant metamorphosis process and, at the same time, it is the reflection of our evolving lifestyles. As a result of globalization and its effects on new nomadism, as well as of a pandemic that confined billions of people to their own four walls, the home is now at the centre of renewed attention and innovative design researches. No longer linked to a functionalist ideal nor conceived as a status symbol or the representation of a symbolic universe, the home is the expression of our desire for physical and psychological wellbeing. Furniture and objects designed in the third decade of the new millennium are conceived to meet modern needs and establishing a lasting complicity with users.

Contemporary furniture pieces are highly modular and adaptable to specific space configurations. More and more efficient, they combine multiple functions and change their appearance to address our needs for transformability. Smarter than ever, these pieces contribute to purify air, sparkle our imagination or amuse us with unexpected functions. Together with versatility, sustainability is a fundamental topic of contemporary home design. In a threatened ecosystem like ours, the desire for more greenery in indoor environments becomes stronger by the day. Through plants and flowers accessories, multispecies artifacts as well as decoration evoking nature, design now aims at soothing our souls in need of a reconnection with Mother Earth. The choice of ecofriendly materials is a fundamental element: be them recycled or natural or both, they are given organic shapes and are intentionally designed to have a second life.

Through the selection of a few particular projects, Home Life represents the contemporary focus on comfort, versatility and environmental awareness and it highlights the role of the home as epicenter of a new habitat.

The exhibition is an IMF Foundation production in collaboration with the EP studio.

Curator: Elisabetta Pisu

Partner: Embassy of Italy in Australia Canberra, Italian Cultural Institute in Sydney

Sponsor: Consorzio Prosecco Doc Italian Genio

Venue: Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre, Canberra, October 27 – December 10, 2022

-photo: 5 Foot Photography