Within the dense program of the Fuorisalone 2024, Mo.1950 presents a new iteration of The Instant of Change, extending its ongoing investigation into material transformation toward an unexpected, sensorial threshold. Titled How Do Materials Taste?, the project introduces a radical shift in perspective: design is no longer only observed or interpreted—it is ingested, metabolized, and shared.
Conceived by artist and food designer Alessandra Pallotta and curated by Luca A. Caizzi, the installation repositions matter within the domain of the edible. What has previously been explored through photography and moving image is here translated into a tactile and gustatory experience, where form dissolves into flavor and perception is reconfigured through taste. The question posed by the title is not metaphorical but operational: what happens when materials—traditionally inert, industrial, architectural—are reimagined as substances to be consumed?
At the core of the exhibition are three large-scale edible sculptures, conceived as abstract compositions that echo the chromatic and textural qualities of contemporary design surfaces. Developed in dialogue with the latest collections by Ceramiche Caesar, Quadrodesign, and Rexa, these works translate the visual identity of ceramics, metals, and composite materials into confectionery forms. Pigments become glazes, textures become layers, and structural geometries are reinterpreted through techniques of culinary fabrication.
Rather than mimicking design objects, Pallotta’s intervention operates through abstraction, allowing correspondences to emerge across disciplines without collapsing their differences. The edible pieces do not replicate surfaces; they resonate with them. In this sense, the installation activates a synesthetic field in which sight, touch, and taste converge, challenging the conventional hierarchies of sensory experience within design exhibitions.
Photography by Ting Tang documents this ephemeral condition, capturing works that are inherently destined to disappear. The image thus becomes both record and extension of the project, preserving a moment that resists permanence—an edible architecture whose temporality is inscribed in its very consumption.
On view from 16 to 20 April at Mo.1950’s Milan showroom (Via Molino delle Armi 14), with an opening event on 17 April, How Do Materials Taste? reframes The Instant of Change as a fully embodied experience. Here, transformation is no longer only seen—it is tasted, internalized, and ultimately dissolved, suggesting that the lifecycle of design may extend beyond form into the intimate, transient realm of the body.
