Beauty and Light Guide the Homo Faber Fellows at Milan Design Week
A compelling exhibition at La Cas degli Artisti demonstrates the informative relationship between master artisans and emerging creatives
The brief to the Homo Faber Fellows 2026 reads: “Your goal is to create an object that captures the beauty deriving from craftsmanship and the relationship between an object and light.” These words by Giampiero Bodino, Art Director of Richemont, initiate the fellows to the program. Over a generous six-month fellowship sponsored by the Michelangelo Foundation, 22 pairs of masters and apprentices practicing 18 different crafts are tasked with producing an object that seals their collaboration to be presented during Milan Design Week at La Casa degli Artisti.
The room where the creations are exhibited beams with light. A hand‑painted wallpaper by Madrid‑based duo Juan Aresti and Celia Botas Vigo shimmers in midair. They source custom paper from a 17th‑century mill to construct panels that reflect the gleam of light and water. A front panel depicts a heron taking flight. It’s impossible to say whether this work privileges concept over function—and that’s the wrong question. The emotional and sensory impact that these pieces deliver becomes the key criterion of success.
How can objects transform space by evoking emotion? An elongated lamp suspended from the wall draws my attention. “Light of Longing” is a collaboration between a Portuguese shade maker and textile sculptor, Ou Sansan (also known as 033) from Mongolia. The latter specializes in using sheep intestines as a textile—here fashioned into a lampshade. The pair describes their creative process as driven by “emotional hunger,” which leads them to choose materials and methods that resonate with their identities.
Light and transparency also feature prominently in “Doppia Firma,” a project by the Cologni Foundation that translates into “double signature,” also on view at La Casa degli Artisti. Designer Sam Baron co-produced a tall white terracotta vase with ceramist Nicolo Giuliano. While visiting Giuliano’s studio in Monreale, Sicily, Baron sketched the vase’s proportions across eight standard paper sheets taped to the wall. “We pushed one another,” he says. “I convinced Giuliano to experiment with scale and to forgo color, while he kept my thinking rooted in tradition—vases mark thresholds, of a home as well as a culture.” The greatest reward of the collaboration, he adds, is making each other proud of the finished piece.
The motif of light connects directly to the theme of the upcoming Homo Faber Biennial: An Island of Light, curated by stage designer Es Devlin. In this fourth iteration of the biennial, light is not only a curatorial concept, but the foundational mission of the Michelangelo Foundation: becoming a beacon of light for artisans from all over the world. Throughout all their efforts, including the Homo Faber Guide and a service helping artisans connect with buyers called Homo Faber Finds, such a mission is now a reality.
The Homo Faber fellows are on view through April 26 in Milan, and the Homo Faber biennial opens at the Fondazione Cini in Venice on August 30.