Call for submissions is open until May 31

We will all become extinct—reluctantly or joyfully.

Or perhaps, on the contrary, we will all be saved: thanks to the magnificent fate of science, or the advent of a god adapted to the standards of the Anthropocene.

The apocalyptic tone is so diffuse that everyone retreats into their favourite conditioned reflex: nihilistic condescension, activist rebellion, messianism, denial, indifference.

Design occupies a unique position. It must confront the neo-anti-capitalist imperative: do not produce, do not reproduce, do not consume. Yet it can only do so from a residual, intrinsic belief in objects as bearers of meaning in everyday life—an animistic afflatus well summed up by Emanuele Coccia when he says that “home is the space in which all objects exist as subjects.”

In this era of polarisation, design cannot fully embody either pole.

It can attempt to resist certain productive/extractive logics, guiding systems of production and fruition toward less exasperated models. It can propose a more intimate form of salvation, limited to the personal sphere—fulfilling, but inherently inadequate.

Less, better: is this the only modest path still open? Or is it merely the only one we can see from here and now? Perhaps we need someone to help us look beyond our (inevitably Western) horizons.

The fifth edition of the Venice Design Biennial, Extinction / Salvation, invites us to use these twin concepts as lenses through which to alternately observe contemporary design. Knowing that neither filter reveals reality in its full spectrum. And also knowing the filters are interchangeable at will.

Jumping from one to the other, refusing fossilisation, practicing listening and ironic awareness, drafting a manual of survival techniques—and rewriting it again and again.

The exhibition programme of Extinction / Salvation (5 September to 2 November 2025) will be divided into two sections: Venice Design Biennial | Glass and Venice Design Biennial | Collectible.