Forum Florum

The exhibition takes place at SIAM (Società d’Incoraggiamento d’Arti e Mestieri), a historic educational institution in the centre of Milan.

Forum Florum—Latin for “flower market”—is conceived as a site of exchange. It examines the flower not only as ornament, but as a product shaped by systems of cultivation, circulation, and control.

At its centre, Flower Journey traces the history of the cut flower—from early cultivation and symbolic use to its contemporary condition as a global commodity. Moving across time and geography, the work exposes the processes through which flowers have been standardised, extracted, and circulated, reflecting on how nature is aestheticised, regulated, and consumed.

The exhibition introduces a new material direction: flower-infused laminated glass panels that embed plant matter within structural glass. Developed as architectural elements, the works transform botanical material into load-bearing surfaces, suspending organic matter between preservation and fixation.

The presentation also includes a new group of statement collectible design pieces, developed in conversation with archival works from the studio’s practice. Works from the Flora series are presented as a distinct body, continuing Rusak’s investigation into the encapsulation of botanical matter, while expanding its formal language and scale.

Plant Pulses, developed in collaboration with Perrier-Jouët, translates scientific research on plant bioacoustics into an installation combining animation and sound. The work renders otherwise imperceptible plant signals into visual and sonic form, proposing alternative ways of sensing and interpreting plant life. Across the exhibition, plants emerge as active agents—living archives that register time, transformation, and interdependence.

Co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage under the Creative Industries Institute’s Development of Creative Sectors programme.