Design News: Photographer Melisa Teo launches book; highlights of biggest furniture fair in Milan (2025)

Paris-based photographer Melisa Teo launches Two Rivers project

Singaporean photographer Melisa Teo, who lives and works in Paris, will launch two exhibitions inspired by her new art book, Two Rivers.

The exhibition debuts at Anderson Bridge, at the mouth of the Singapore River, from April 23 to May 31. It then moves to VivoCity and will be held at the shopping centre’s Waterfront Promenade and Southwest Boulevard from June 4 to July 4.

Teo’s Two Rivers book project is an exploration of her life, memory and dreams, featuring images from the Singapore River and Seine River in Paris, France.

“The Singapore River is where I was born, while the Seine River is where I was reborn,” says Teo. “The Singapore River carries my memories and the Seine River, my dreams. While I left one behind, in search of the ‘self’, I discovered instead that all our destinies are intertwined. We are all connected to one another. Just as all rivers eventually meet again at the sea, we too are one.”

The joint initiative is supported by the French and Singapore governments to commemorate 60 years of diplomatic relations.

The exhibition is presented by the French Embassy as part of the Voilah! France-Singapore Festival 2025, and supported by Singapore’s Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, National Arts Council, National Parks Board and Land Transport Authority.

Project partners include Mapletree Investments and The Fullerton Hotel Singapore.

Mr Pierre Haski, a French journalist and president of international non-profit Reporters Without Borders, says Teo uses her camera the way 19th-century Impressionist painters used their brushes.

“Not to reproduce reality as it is offered to everyone, but as she feels it, as she sublimates it,” he notes.

Info: For details on the Two Rivers exhibitions and line-up of activities, go to melisateo.com. For pre-orders of the 120-page hardcover book, e-mail clara@maartin.fr. It is priced at about €33 (S$49) and is published by Les Editions du Pacifique in Paris, France.

World’s biggest furniture fair wraps up in Milan with inspiring global designs

The world’s biggest furniture fair in Milan, the Salone del Mobile.Milano 2025, wrapped up its six-day global showcase on April 13 after attracting more than 300,000 visitors.

The 63rd edition of the annual fair, which took up about 169,000 sq m of exhibition space at the Rho Fiera grounds, just outside central Milan, featured projects, installations and new designs from 2,103 exhibitors from 37 countries.

The trade fair was complemented by Milan Design Week, a cluster of events that included the Salone Satellite, which showcased emerging talents.

There was also Fuorisalone, which referred to events outside the fair, hosted in hundreds of venues across the Italian art, fashion and design capital.

One of the most-talked-about design installations at the Fuorisalone, commissioned by Salone del Mobile.Milano, was English artist and stage designer Es Devlin’s monumental Library Of Light. It spanned 18m in diameter and surrounded the Antonio Canova bronze sculpture of Napoleon Bonaparte at Pinacoteca di Brera.

Devlin, 54, is known as a “poet of light” for her dramatic stage sets that infuse experimental lighting designs. She was inspired by a phrase from Italian novelist Umberto Eco: “Books are the compass of the mind, they point to countless worlds yet to be explored.”

Her revolving cylindrical sculpture was made from illuminated bookshelves containing 3,200 books.

Over at the Pharmacy Courtyard of the University of Milan, American e-commerce and tech giant Amazon collaborated with international design practice MAD Architects to reinterpret the notion of the traditional Italian piazza at the Fuorisalone.

Named The Amazing Plaza, the sprawling installation featured brightly coloured ETFE strips that created an ethereal outdoor ambience. The strips were transparent films made from a type of fluoropolymer, known for its durability and high resistance to elements such as temperature extremes.

The installation was a modern take on the town square, which historically served as the urban heart of social and commercial life.

Another Fuorisalone highlight was American technology company Google’s installation titled Making The Invisible Visible, showing how abstract ideas could be translated into tangible forms through light.

Visitors walked into a space where lighting was conceived as an architectural element, and where they could feel and almost touch the rays of light.

Developed in collaboration with Google’s chief design officer of consumer devices Ivy Ross, and light and water artist Lachlan Turczan, the installation shone a light on how art and design help power the ideation process.

Info: Go to salonemilano.it/en

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