Milan Design Week 2026: Marcin Rusak’s ‘Forum Florum’ reimagines the herbarium as a botanical design system

Opening from April 20th to 26th, 2026, during Milan Design Week 2026, Forum Florum: Herbarium of the Present by Marcin Rusak takes over SIAM (Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Crafts) in the heart of Milan. The exhibition positions itself as both an artistic and educational platform, expanding the vocabulary of botanical design through material research, sculptural experimentation, and ecological reflection. The project is co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage under the Creative Industries Institute’s Development of Creative Sectors programme.

Botanical archives, living systems, and design language

Marcin Rusak continues his sustained investigation into botanical design, treating plants not as decorative elements but as active carriers of memory and time. The exhibition reframes the herbarium as a contemporary system in which objects function as “memory capsules,” encasing botanical matter in resin and glass to register—and project—the shifting conditions of the natural world.

Spread across SIAM’s courtyard and historic interiors, the presentation begins with Flower Journey, a large-scale installation mapping the global cut-flower industry through 3D printing and bronze casting. It extends into Plant Pulses, developed with Perrier-Jouët, which translates plant ultrasound data into sound and image, making vegetal processes sensorially legible.

A series of new works expands this living system: laminated herbarium panels, a refined furniture line, and biodegradable 3D-printed lighting that shapes a restrained interior atmosphere. Together, they navigate the tension between preservation and decay, intimacy and monumentality.