First exhibited at the fifth edition of the Łódź Design Festival last year, the collection of the most innovative objects of design created by young Polish designers comes to the Ventura Lambrate zone affiliated with the Salone del Mobile. The almost 150 objects presented at Łódź last year were whittled down to 42 semi-finalists by a panel of experts, concentrating on the most striking examples of Polish design for the home, office and industry, and again to the 25 items featured this month in Italy. The featured companies are both large-scale design firms and independent designers working on a very small budget. Items range from furnishings, lighting fixtures, decorations, toys to packaging. These include Maja Zalewska and Marek Kostykiewicz Cable Power lighting solutions - simply light bulbs suspended on colourful cables that provide a simple, nonetheless attractive lighting option. Locomoco, founded by Filip Domaszczyński, Marta Nowosielska and Dorota Sibińska, make creative modular furniture for kids that is both fun and comfortable. Other child-friendly items on offer include the unusual Laloushka stuffed doll that is essentially a portrait of its intended owner. The Dwie Siostry publishing house, founded by three friends: Joanna Rzyska, Ewa Stiasny and Jadwiga Jędra presents their signature series of smart, well-design books for children - one of their book's won Best Book at the 2011 Children's Book Fair in Bologna.
Many designers reach back to their folk roots, such as Joanna Rusin carpets of traditional striped design from Łowicz and Fabriqa's natural-yarn fabrics produced by Małgorzata Gajewicz and Ewa Nowakowska. Maciej Kukurba from Pan Poppi draws on 18th-century craft traditions to create furniture that is just as apt in today's home. Designers like Jadwiga Husarska-Chmielarz, Tomasz Augustyniak and the Pan tu nie stał design team (Justyna Burzyńska and Maciek Lebiedowicz) draw on Poland's rich store of design projects from the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s - virtually unknown in most of the world, yet a great testament to modernism and post-modernism.
Ecology and energy efficiency is also a major focus, with Kafti Design's (Monika Brauntsch and Sonia Słaboń) lamps manufactured locally in an environmentally-conscious process. The group Tabanda (Małgorzata Malinowska, Filip Ludka and Tomasz Kempa) reuse the remains of their previous projects to create new ones, reducing waste to a significant degree. Magda Kałęk and Kamil Jurzykowski founded Phenome, the first cosmetic brand in Poland that collects used packaging.
Oskar Zięta (Zieta Prozessdesign), a designer who works and lives in Poland and Switzerland, works to push design technology to its limits, inventing and developing the unique technology FIDU that allows to make three-dimensional objects from two thin steel plates.
According to the organisers of the exhibition, the selection was determined, above all by the "functionality, ergonomics, quality and aesthetics of the products". Ewa Solorz, curator of the exhibition, has expressed the goal for the presentation to popularise Polish design abroad, which is surprisingly innovative - particularly in terms of ecological and ergonomic solutions - and yet not as widely recognised in the international forum as Scandinavian or Japanese design. The show is not intended to be an esoteric array of objects, rather these are products that are readily available and easy to use, produced by small business and large companies alike. The show in Milan is supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw.
Editor: Agnieszka Le Nart
Source: Press release