‘I like thinking of light as a volume, almost as if it were liquid being poured into different containers – rooms or fixtures within rooms,’ says Omer Arbel, founder and creative director of Canadian lighting brand Bocci. It’s a description that makes perfect sense upon visiting ‘Light as Medium’, the latest installation at the brand’s apartment showroom in Milan, which opened yesterday for the city’s annual design week (see our live blog for all the latest news from our editors on the ground).
In the bedroom, 24 ‘141’ pieces are displayed within a shelving structure composed of individual matte white boxes. Each ‘141’ fixture consists of two pours of glass, one sepia and one coloured, with six different dual-coloured combinations new for this year
For the occasion, the residential space has been transformed into a sequence of immersive encounters, where sheet and hand-blown glass forms glow in the darkness like planets in a night sky, cascade from the ceiling or are arranged en masse to spellbinding effect. ‘My role is to offer some sort of poetic interference – thickening the atmosphere, as it were, so it catches the light in a particular way. It has a mysterious impact on people’s emotions, light does.’
All Bocci series are brought together in silver, forming a single reflective column in the bathroom
Here, that thinking unfolds as a kind of spatial laboratory, where light is used to probe perception and emotion. The showcase is the second collaboration between Arbel and curator David Alhadeff, founder of American design gallery The Future Perfect. This more abstract, immersive format marks a clear departure from last year’s more conventional display – where pieces were presented within a series of furnished interiors alongside works by Orior and Christopher Farr – into something more architectural. ‘At its core, Bocci is about research and design,’ says Alhadeff. ‘Omer Arbel is one of the truly important designers working today, consistently pushing the limits of what’s possible.’
A line of hand-blown glass spheres increases in size, stretching across the living room
For Alhadeff, the shift away from conventional display allows that experimental spirit to be felt more directly. ‘I’ve become increasingly focused on how design is experienced, how it can shift perception and challenge expectations,’ he continues. ‘Working at the scale of space, rather than object, opens that up in a much more compelling way.’
A sloping plane of glass tiles suspended above the kitchen form a continuous surface of light
‘Light as Medium’ presents entirely new work developed from Arbel’s material studies and realised through Bocci’s studio framework, alongside existing series that have been reimagined. In the bathroom, every Bocci catalogue piece to date is brought together and finished with a silver coating. The mirrored surfaces collapse these varied forms into a single reflective column, tracing the evolution of the Bocci catalogue.
Installed in the upper corners of the basement, a triangular three-dimensional fixture integrates with the architecture
‘It’s like looking through a microscope at water from a tidal pool and discovering that it’s full of life, an entire ecosystem of creatures interacting,’ says Arbel. ‘I feel the same sort of surprise and wonder when I look at it. Besides being a diary of all the different things we’ve ever made, each one with its own story, the piece somehow transcends them all and has an entirely unexpected presence of its own accord.’
A continuous band of pendants descends through the stairwell, following the path of the staircase as it turns the corner toward the lower level
In the hallway, an installation titled ‘147 Wave’ comprises 200 illuminated sheets of glass, each loosely folded and varied in tone and form. The pieces gather into a continuous wave that pushes out from the wall and lifts towards the ceiling, turning the corridor into a luminous passage. ‘Early on, I was interested in using this presentation to explore scale and create something more architectural with Bocci,’ explains Alhadeff. ‘Omer proposed curving the pieces into the opposing wall, and by introducing a mirror, it transforms into this expansive archway you move through. It’s simple, but incredibly elegant, and it captures exactly what I hoped we could achieve this year: not just presenting an object, but expanding people’s sense of what Bocci can do.’
For Alhadeff and Arbel, both established voices in their own right, the collaboration has developed into a productive exchange. ‘I see my role, in part, as a challenger,’ says Alhadeff. ‘I ask questions, test ideas, and often push against assumptions. That dynamic could easily create friction, but instead it’s been embraced by Omer and the broader Bocci team. It’s made the process more rigorous and, ultimately, more collaborative, allowing the work, and our relationship, to evolve in a meaningful way.’
bocci.com
A semicircle of pendants is mirrored to create a repeating pattern of full circles
