Triennale Milano’s 24th International Exhibition, under the leadership of architect and president Stefano Boeri, presents an ambitious and urgent theme: inequality. Featuring over 350 participants from 72 countries, the exhibition is a powerful assembly of architectural, artistic, and academic voices aiming to explore, understand, and offer potential responses to one of the defining challenges of our time. Running until November 9, 2025, it transforms the iconic Milanese institution into what Boeri calls a “constellation of ideas and possible solutions.”
Inequality as a global and structural concern
“In order to confront the major challenges humanity faces—climate change, mass migration, urbanization—we must first confront inequality,” said Stefano Boeri in a recent interview with Dezeen. This guiding philosophy frames the 24th International Exhibition at Triennale Milano, positioning inequality not as a peripheral issue, but as a root cause embedded in geopolitics, biopolitics, and spatial design.
The exhibition is divided into two thematic axes—geopolitics and biopolitics—each occupying a floor of the Triennale’s historic building. The ground floor focuses on geopolitical inequality, tackling how urban environments both reflect and reproduce social and economic disparities. From discriminatory zoning laws to housing crises and the spatial politics of displacement, the curated works interrogate how built environments often serve as physical manifestations of systemic injustice.
Urban tragedies and spaces of remembrance
Among the most haunting installations on the ground floor is a tribute to the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Curated in collaboration with Grenfell Next of Kin spokesperson Kimia Zabihyan, the exhibit includes a moving display of memorial quilts and artworks created in honor of the 72 people who lost their lives in the 2017 fire. “It’s one of the most tragic and emblematic cases of inequality in our urban environments,” Boeri said.
Another key installation, Towards a More Equal Future by the Norman Foster Foundation, proposes tangible responses to informal and underserved settlements. The exhibit introduces prototype nuclear-powered batteries and modular housing systems designed for rapid deployment in contexts of displacement or infrastructural collapse. It positions technology and design not merely as tools of innovation, but as vehicles for addressing basic human rights.
The body as a site of politics
On the first floor, the lens shifts to biopolitical inequality—how social structures and policies influence bodies, health, gender, and interpersonal relationships. The featured works examine how identity and human rights are negotiated in both private and public realms, using art and design to make visible the often invisible forms of structural violence.
A highlight of this section is Clay Corpus by American artist Theaster Gates, which envelops Triennale Milano’s permanent display of Ettore Sottsass furniture. The immersive installation includes thousands of ceramic pieces crafted by Japanese artisan Yoshihiro Koide in collaboration with rural communities. “Art and craft become tools to improve quality of life,” Boeri noted, underscoring the installation’s quiet, tactile resistance to erasure and marginalization.
A data-driven memorial to war and loss
One of the most emotionally charged moments of the exhibition takes place not in a hall, but on the main staircase, where Italian data analyst Filippo Teoldi has installed 471 Days. This data-driven artwork records civilian casualties in Palestine and Israel between 7 October 2023 and 18 January 2025, chronicling the conflict’s human toll with stark precision.
“471 Days is an installation that speaks in a very strong but at the same time delicate way,” Boeri remarked. The project forms a visual bridge between the exhibition’s two conceptual axes—geopolitics and biopolitics—revealing how armed conflict, national policy, and bodily harm are deeply interlinked. In its somber elegance, the work becomes a quiet epicenter of the exhibition’s moral inquiry.
A free, global forum for urgent dialogue
The 24th International Exhibition marks a bold continuation of Triennale Milano’s legacy as a forum for socially and politically engaged design. Boeri’s curatorial vision connects spatial justice with global responsibility, framing architecture not simply as a discipline of aesthetics or utility, but as one that must be held accountable for the inequalities it can both challenge and perpetuate.
What makes this exhibition especially vital is its accessibility—free to the public and featuring contributors from every continent. By assembling diverse perspectives and offering an inclusive platform, Triennale Milano creates space for critique, creativity, and solidarity.
As Boeri succinctly puts it, “Without considering inequalities, it will be impossible to deal with the main challenges that humanity has to face in the coming years.” The 24th International Exhibition doesn’t just illustrate this truth—it demands we respond to it.
Details:
Exhibition name: 24th Triennale Milano International Exhibition
Location: Triennale Milano, Viale Emilio Alemagna 6, 20121 Milano, Italy
Dates: May 13 – November 9, 2025
Admission: Free
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