The Theatre of Things is an experiment in living with design. For the duration of Milan Design Week, it will transform a Milanese storefront into a living domestic stage — an eclectic space shaped by the unique creative expressions of seven designers.
The shop window of Delvis (Un)Limited gallery in the Brera district becomes the proscenium for a spontaneous performance: the everyday actions of designers who, after collectively shaping it, inhabit this space day and night as a temporary home during Milan Design Week.
Inside this home/exhibition, collectible design pieces mingle with objects—functional or otherwise—that genuinely belong to the participating designers. The scene is deliberately disorienting: a bed in the window offers a voyeuristic invitation to passersby and an open call for more intentional visitors to join the performance. A gallery that is a home; a home that is a gallery. The exhibition reflects on collectible design's position between artistic endeavor and conversation piece, questioning the very meaning of home.
Each night, one of the seven designers will sleep in the gallery-home. Each morning, a journalist, critic, or curator will wake them for coffee and engage in an informal conversation about the experience—discussing collective design, living amidst collectible pieces, and the unexpected thoughts emerging from this unusual act of self-exhibition. These conversations will be public, inviting audience participation, and recorded as testament to this experimental exhibition, which draws inspiration from radical artistic and design interventions like Gianni Pettena's La Casa all'Elba and Joseph Beuys' Coyote performance.
For seven days, the space will evolve organically. Those who wish to sleep will sleep; those who want morning exercise will have it, with or without music. Some may host intimate dinners, others may welcome friends for drinks. The Theatre of Things, at Via Fatebenefratelli 9, will preserve traces of the designers who lived within it and the visitors who came to meet them.
