After twenty years of walking the streets of Milan, Irène Pollini Giolai’s conclusion is clear: Design Week has become an uncontrollable “blob.” What was once a professional trade fair is now an autonomous organism that devours the entire city. In this saturated landscape, FOMO (fear of missing out) is no longer a side effect but the very grammar of the event. By trying to see and validate everything, the visitor is caught in an exhausting marathon where the multiplication of events ends up dividing the meaning.
The Paradox of Surface: More Space, Less Depth
The event’s evolution highlights a fascinating paradox: as the exhibition area grows, cultural depth seems to shrink. In this system where “everything is hype,” the hierarchy of values collapses. When every installation is decreed indispensable by marketing, nothing truly is anymore. Milan has moved from an organized system to a continuous surface without a center—a networking accelerator that struggles to remain a space for genuine intellectual processing.
The End of Delegated Judgment
This uncontrolled growth shifts a colossal responsibility onto the visitor. Since the system no longer offers a shared canon or recognizable quality criteria, the burden falls on the observer. We can no longer delegate our judgment to algorithms or trend lists. The question is no longer “what to see,” but understanding why we are there. Without this intention, we pass through the city like ghosts, consuming images without retaining anything.
The Practice of Self-Curatorship
Faced with this deluge, the solution lies in self-curatorship. Becoming the curator of one’s own time and journey has become a necessity for mental survival. This requires regaining an awareness of personal tastes rather than following the flow. To choose is to renounce, but it is also the only way to truly begin “seeing” again. If we stop choosing what moves us, we allow ourselves to be submerged by a machine that decides in our place.
Ultimately, this saturated Milan Design Week becomes a metaphor for modern life. It offers a chaotic space where the only real challenge is finding one’s own compass. The fair should no longer be the place where we verify what others deem important, but a training ground for the mind. In this creative chaos, value is no longer ready-made: it is built through curiosity and the demand of a gaze that refuses to drown.
