Kia is showcasing its Design Cultural Communication Project at the 2024 Milan Design Week, presenting new works of art inspired by the brand’s ‘Opposites United’ design philosophy. The exhibition, held at the Museo della Permanente in Milan, Italy from April 15 to 21, features collaborations with renowned artists aimed at elevating design culture through bold and exploratory artworks.
Last year’s event served as a platform for discussing Kia’s design philosophy, but this year’s exhibition takes a step further by engaging in dialogue and conversations with participants from various fields. The goal is to foster cultural creativity through direct communication with visitors, facilitated by three distinct styles of art installation: Personal and Collective, Tangible and Intangible, and Finite and Infinite, Kia shared.
Personal and Collective
This section explores the contrast between personal and collective perspectives on life and the world. Anna Galtarossa’s kaleidoscopic multi-sensory installation, ‘The Spirit of Disco,’ offers a journey through the artist’s personal perspective, integrating the material world with augmented reality. In contrast, Riccardo Benassi’s conceptual work, ‘Daily Dense Dance Desiderio,’ delves into collective practices through a digital world of techno-thoughts, reflecting on ecstatic and trance-like moments.
Tangible and Intangible
Sissel Tolaas, a multidisciplinary artist, explores the significance of scent in ‘whereareWEarewhere,’ a high-tech apparatus that distributes a new architecture of senses. By pushing the boundaries of perception, Tolaas expands the realm of experience to deliver ‘the smell of Opposites United 2024,’ an aroma of the future based on the concept of Opposites United.
Finite and Infinite
Danilo Grande and Benny Lai collaborate on ‘Led Pulse,’ merging Eastern and Western cultural and philosophical elements to create new frontiers in art and technology. ‘The Dragon0 Universe’ serves as both a stage for performers and a self-sufficient entity—a cyborg dragon—that sparks reflections on the individual and collective dualism.
This year’s exhibition invites visitors to a world without imaginative limitations, where sensation transcends boundaries and authority. It represents an exploration of new realms and possibilities, encouraging creativity and innovation beyond traditional frameworks.
