The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis opens its first walker design triennial on October 17, 2026. Titled Beyond Materialism, the show asks whether design can serve purposes beyond function and optimisation. The curator, Joseph Grima, starts the story with a chair on fire.
The walker design triennial features 26 designers and collectives across three major galleries. The Walker’s press release says the participants come from more than 10 countries, including Austria, Belgium, Greece, Nigeria, South Korea and Taiwan. Seven of them show in the United States for the first time.
Grima organised the walker design triennial with Asli Altay, the Walker’s head of design, communication and content. The show runs through February 14, 2027.
Grima says the exhibition challenges a habit of thought. “We live in an age that is conditioned to think that anything and everything can be designed,” he said. “And it’s precisely this association between design and optimisation that this exhibition intends to question.”
A chair that burns
The show opens with Lassù, a 1970s work by the designer Alessandro Mendini. Lassù is a 1970s piece by Mendini, shown alongside depictions of a chair on fire.
The chair is a conceptual design exercise rather than furniture. The historical works, including Lassù, sit alongside designers representing the field today. The work argues that design can carry conceptual and spiritual weight, not only practical value.
The historical section includes the philosophies and works of the Shakers, alongside Mendini. The Shakers are among the historical precursors for design’s engagement with spirituality and ritual. He added that the Shaker chair shows a physical need met alongside a spiritual one.
The historical section also includes work by Ettore Sottsass Jr. The images show a set of stairs that leads nowhere, a doorway that offers a false passage.
Speakers that listen
Spanish designer and sound-system artist Lucas Muñoz Muñoz’ commission is called All Ears. Its latex-covered speakers play sounds recorded in Minneapolis in the months before the opening, according to Dezeen. Visitors use a soundboard to play the tracks, and several can run through the soft, amorphous speakers at once.
Muñoz told Dezeen that the installation works as a “microphone” for the city. He said it is meant to “make visible the act of listening.” The soundboard feed is also projected out of the gallery as a radio sequence.
If the speakers that listen caught your attention, Mariami Kurtishvili’s detachable orchid sound system offers another take on sound as a sculptural, shared public object.
Vessel, the duo of James Bridle and Navine G Dossos, contributes a second commission. Two massive rolls of fabric unspool over a kiosk. The pattern draws on Dossos’s paintings of the self-built home she shares with Bridle.
The post-apocalyptic strand comes from Espace Aygo, a studio based in Brussels. Its appliances are built from found objects, drawing on the studio’s 2022 conversion of a derelict apartment building into a home and art space.
Objects for scarcity and repair
London-based Superflux shows objects from its Relics of Abundance series. The pieces imagine a future civilisation that uses today’s objects during a time of scarcity. One chair is made from straw and rebar.
Austro-Canadian designer Christoph Wimmer Ruelland makes furniture from found objects, matched carefully by colour. Korean designer Jonghoo Jeong builds a fountain from stacked plastic jerrycans. It recalls his earlier habit of dumping objects in his process.
The reuse of salvaged materials runs through this triennial, and circular furniture from discarded denim and paper shows how that thinking plays out in everyday objects.
Athens-based Astronauts presents inflated metal works shaped by the logic of autobody shops. The collection includes love seats, chairs and a seesaw. The forms look unfamiliar, yet they remain recognisable as everyday objects.
Italian-German designer Maximilian Marchesani makes a structural piece from smartphone glass that refracts metal-coated leaves. He also created a chandelier that combines LEDs with branches. South Korean studio Wknd Lab shows stools made from discarded shells.
Dezeen names more designers in the exhibition, including Moon Seop Seo, Studio Ker, Objects of Common Interest, Stef Fusani, Kevin Quale and Kostas Lambridis. Kostas Lambridis is also among the participants. Moon Seop Seo also takes part in the exhibition.
Germane Barnes is among the contemporary US designers in the show. Theaster Gates and Barnes both represent the contemporary United States in the show. The Walker’s materials describe the column’s smooth Western profiles as broken open into rippling, rough surfaces.
Design history behind the walker design triennial
The Walker has a long record with design. Its first director, Daniel Defenbacher, an architect by training, launched the Idea Houses I and II in 1941 and 1947. The Everyday Art Gallery followed in 1946. In fall 2023, the museum opened Idea House 3, a physical and digital retail platform for design objects.
Grima described the walker design triennial as an “opportunity to stop, take stock for a moment, and reflect on what design is today.” The objects do not promise answers. They ask visitors to stand between a burned chair and a fleshy speaker and decide what design owes the people who use it.
Sources & Links
Source: dezeen.com
Frequently asked questions
When does the Walker Art Center design triennial open and close?
The Walker Art Center’s first design triennial opens on October 17, 2026, and runs through February 14, 2027. It takes place at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.
What is the title of the Walker design triennial and who curated it?
The Walker design triennial is titled Beyond Materialism and asks whether design can serve purposes beyond function and optimisation. It was curated by Joseph Grima, who organised it with Asli Altay, the Walker’s head of design, communication and content.
How many designers are featured in the Walker design triennial?
The triennial features 26 designers and collectives across three major galleries. According to the Walker’s press release, participants come from more than 10 countries, including Austria, Belgium, Greece, Nigeria, South Korea and Taiwan.
What is Lucas Muñoz Muñoz’s All Ears commission in the triennial?
All Ears is a commission by Spanish designer and sound-system artist Lucas Muñoz Muñoz. It uses latex-covered speakers that play sounds recorded in Minneapolis in the months before the opening, and visitors use a soundboard to play the tracks.
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