The Venice Design Biennial returns from 5 September to 2 November 2025 for its fifth edition. This year’s theme, Extinction / Salvation, reflects the polarities of the present. For curators Francesca Giubilei and Luca Berta, the two concepts offer a lens through which to consider how design engages with today’s environmental, social and cultural crises.
Every design decision, they explain, carries a weight. Making something means using resources, which partly goes against the idea that production should be paused altogether. But doing nothing is not a solution. Extinction and salvation become a way to read the materials, methods and priorities behind contemporary design.
The Biennial traces these tensions across exhibitions hosted at SPARC, SPUMA, and collateral events at 193 Gallery, Galerie Negropontes, Spazio Ravà and other spaces throughout the city. Follows a selection of projects that reflect how design is thinking through the present.
Gæla, The Pet Project
The Pet Project is a collaboration between Icelandic designers Helga Lára Halldórsdóttir and Marta Heiðarsdóttir of Gæla. The work explores the possibility of a more attentive relationship with everyday objects, one shaped by care rather than function. On display is a furry textile made from Icelandic lambswool, collected from meat industry waste. Its surface carries traces of its origin, irregular textures and natural discolorations are left untouched. For the designers, this material holds qualities that are often overlooked. By shifting it away from its traditional use, they open up a different way of engaging with it. The result is an object that invites contact and presence, more companion than tool.
VandaVee, Simorgh II
Simorgh II is a piece by designer VandaVee, whose practice draws on both Persian and British cultural heritage. The chair pairs a solid walnut frame with a hand-embroidered upholstered seat. The embroidery, made by the designer, reinterprets traditional Persian patterns through a contemporary lens. The work takes its name from the Simorgh, a mythical bird in Iranian folklore, often linked to ideas of wisdom and transformation. As with many of the projects in this year’s Biennial, the piece looks to the past as a way of engaging the present. It invites reflection on how objects carry meaning, and on the ways material, memory and manual craft can be brought into dialogue. In a context where making is never a neutral act, Simorgh II asks what it means to design with intention.
Anna Jožová, Dysplasio
Dysplasio is a project by Czech designer Anna Jožová, whose work moves between visual art and product design. Working with glass, she creates forms that suggest organic matter in flux, at times on the edge of decomposition. A material typically associated with smooth surfaces and optical clarity is here pushed in another direction. Through texture and treatment, it evokes decay, corrosion and instability. The choice speaks directly to the theme of this year’s Venice Design Biennial. Extinction is not only a possibility, but a condition made visible in the material itself. Jožová’s work forms part of a broader inquiry shared by many of the artists on view: how nature can be both shelter and sign of decline, and how design might navigate that tension. At SPARC, the section dedicated to contemporary glass, several other projects take up these questions from very different angles.
Private Homes by XX Century Masters
One of the key additions to this year’s edition is the rare opening of several private residences designed by major figures in twentieth-century Italian design, including Carlo Scarpa, Ettore Sottsass and Valeriano Pastor. Among them is the apartment Sottsass designed for Cleto Munari, designer and artist, located on the main floor of a seventeenth-century palazzo in the San Polo district. The entrance leads into a wide living room with exposed beams, from which a series of doors opens onto adjoining rooms. Each door is different: one in burl wood, one with a checkerboard pattern, one painted sky blue with oriental detailing. At the center of the space stands the Totem, a multifunctional piece that combines shelving, lighting, a bar and a coat rack. Guided tours, led in part by the current residents, can be booked through the Venice Design Biennial website. Places are limited.
Title: Extinction / Salvation
Edition: 5th Edition, Venice Design Biennial 2025
Dates: 5 September – 2 November 2025
Curators: Francesca Giubilei and Luca Berta
Main Venues:
- SPARC – Spazio Arte Contemporanea, Campo Santo Stefano, San Marco 2828A, Venice
- SPUMA – Space for the Arts, Ex Birreria Dreher, Fondamenta San Biagio 800/R, Giudecca, Venice
Instagram: @venicedesignbiennial
Website: venicedesignbiennial.org
