At Milan Design Week 2026, artist Emmanuelle Luciani joins forces with Baccarat for Crystal Crypt, an immersive installation staged at Fondation Mondadori from April 21st to 25th, 2026. Conceived as both exhibition and live event, it opens with a performance and DJ set on April 21st, blurring the line between display and enactment.
Luciani constructs a speculative narrative in which film, sound, scenography, and choreography converge. Set in the year 5300, the work imagines crystal as a scarce, near-mythic material, safeguarded by a small community of artisans at the edge of a distant galaxy—an echo of science fiction’s narrative architectures, from Philip K. Dick to video game worlds.
The Baccarat Manufacture is recast as a vessel outside linear time. Bathed in violet light, the environment aligns choreography with the gestures of glassmaking, while sculptural elements evoke the tools of the craft. Developed with Southway Studio and Alex Dante, the scenography draws on space opera, manga, and Gothic Revival, producing a visual language suspended between eras.
Crystal Crypt reflects on transmission, material memory, and the persistence of craft. Here, Baccarat’s crystal escapes historical fixity, emerging as an artefact untethered from time—an invitation to rethink the relationship between heritage and speculative futures.
EMMANUELLE LUCIANI X BACCARAT
Crystal Crypt, 2026
Special thanks to KARLA OTTO
