Our Milan Design Week Exhibition as a Celebration of Paola Navone’s Prolific Practice and Generous Spirit
At our joyful “Take It or Leave It” exhibition, participants left with items ranging from silver inflatable wings to a four-foot-tall decorative metal fork.
By Emily Jiang
April 26, 2023
8 minute read
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One thousand numbered objects, 623 lottery drawings, 591 “Take Its,” 32 “Leave Its,” and a smattering of trades therein, all in the span of five days. Last week, The Slowdown presented our first-ever public event, the exhibition “Take It or Leave It,” in collaboration with the Italian architect and designer Paola Navone, and it was no placid affair. But of course it wasn’t—the off-kilter exhibition started with an outside-the-box idea by Navone, after all, to give away hundreds of items she had collected or designed over the years, from Indian metal spoons to indigo textiles to ceramic pitchers from Puglia, for free. As much planning and preparation went into the production, nobody could have anticipated exactly what would play out over the course of the week.
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