Jury – House of Switzerland Milano
The Swiss design industry is preparing for a highly anticipated presence at Milano Design Week 2024. The House of Switzerland, a unique exhibition space, will once again showcase the talent of emerging designers, studios, institutions, and established brands, representing the current Swiss design landscape and its success stories.
The important amount of submitted applications from the design industry at large underscores the importance of this initiative with the willingness of participants to come together and influence the global design industry.
An international jury made of renowned industry players will select the most relevant and meaningful projects responding to this edition’s theme “Joy”.
The selected exhibitors will be notified by mid-November and the public announcement will follow early February 2024.
The members of the jury are ;
Wataru Kumano
Wataru Kumano is product designer. After studying in Finland from 2001 to 2008, he worked for Jasper Morrison. Since 2011, he established the design office kumano in Japan. The office works on projects with domestic and foreign furniture makers such as Nikari, Karimoku and Tendo Mokko, based on the principles of design, encompassing elements such as the environment, functionality, and regional characteristics. In 2021, he was invited at the Lausanne Cantonal School of Art (ECAL) in Switzerland, and in the fall of the same year he became an associate professor at Musashino Art University.
Johanna Agerman Ross
Johanna Agerman Ross is the newly appointed Chief Curator at the Design Museum in London where she oversees the museum’s exhibition programme. She was previously curator of twentieth century and contemporary furniture and product design at the Victoria & Albert Museum. During her seven years at he museum she curated the new permanent gallery Design 1900-Now and launched the new initiative Make Good: Rethinking Material Futures, looking at the use of renewable and sustainable materials in design and architecture. She also co-curated the touring exhibition Plastic: Remaking Our World with colleagues at Vitra Design Museum, V&A Dundee and maat Lisbon. Johanna is originally from Sweden but came to London to study at London College of Fashion and the Royal College of Art. She founded the international design journal Disegno in 2011, which she edited for five years. She is still Disegno’s director.
Alessio Ascari
Alessio Ascari is the founder and creative director of KALEIDOSCOPE, a biannual almanac of contemporary aesthetics, and Capsule, its sibling publication dedicated to design and architecture. Since 2018, he curates the cultural programming of events and exhibitions at Spazio Maiocchi, Milan. In June 2023, during Men’s Fashion Week, he curated a major exhibition celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the iconic 1953 Gucci Horsebit loafer. In December 2022, he co-curated “Virgil Abloh: The Codes” at the Rubell Museum in Miami.
