Curated by the contemporary culture media platform New Scale, the exhibition features four participants — Soft Baroque, Pierre Castignola, Geray Mena and Toshiki Yagisawa — each offering unique perspectives on the complexities of contemporary society through their distinct practices. Taking inspiration from the "open world" format of video games, the exhibition title invites both viewers and artists to become protagonists, enabling countless narratives to emerge through interactions with the works.
Soft Baroque embedded sensory dissonance into archetypal furniture forms such as benches and tables, provoking multilayered perception. Pierre Castignola explored the boundaries of consumer culture and intellectual property through everyday products, offering incisive critique. Geray Mena's photographic works held fleeting moments and eternity in tension, making visible the strata of time. Toshiki Yagisawa revisited the frameworks of material and perception by weaving together ceramics, woodcarving and digital technologies.
This exhibition serves as a space where viewers engage in dialogue with the works, weaving new stories and allowing diverse perspectives to resonate. We invite you to experience "Open World" through these pages, where the future of visual culture unfolds.

Soft Baroque is a design duo formed by Australian-born Nicholas Gardner and Slovenian-born Saša Štucin, who met while studying at the Royal College of Art in London. Established in 2013, their work has been exhibited internationally at institutions such as the V&A (Victoria & Albert Museum), Swiss Institute, and Patrick Parrish Gallery (NY). They have also collaborated with brands like Balenciaga and HEM, exploring contradictions in material and function and the boundary between digital and physical. In recent years, their relocation to Ljubljana, Slovenia, has brought new inspiration through collaboration and engagement with the local environment.

Pierre Castignola is a French designer who graduated from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2018 and founded his own studio in the Netherlands the same year. Known for his conceptual approach, Castignola critically examines consumer culture, semiotics, and intellectual property through everyday objects. His renowned project Copytopia challenges ideas of authenticity and ownership by reassembling components of mass-produced plastic garden chairs, inspired by his shock at the prohibition of copying currency. The result is a playful “utopia of imitation and creation.”

Geray Mena is a Spanish artist who studied painting, sculpture, and fashion design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam, later developing a practice centered on photography. Having worked as a furniture maker in cities like London and Paris, he cultivated a deep respect for materials and structure. His work navigates the space between documentation and construction of the ephemeral, employing tools such as AI and large-format cameras in his visual explorations. In addition to his artistic practice, he is actively involved in education at ECAL (École cantonale d’art de Lausanne), where he shares a critical perspective with the next generation. Balancing personal and commercial work, Mena continues to build a dynamic international presence.

Toshiki Yagisawa is an artist and designer who works fluidly across mediums such as ceramics, woodworking, 3D printing, and CGI, generating new narratives and material presences. He is the founder of the contemporary media platform New Scale. Through collaborations with international designers, artists, and brands—including M/M (Paris), JW Anderson, Dis, and Bang & Olufsen—he explores the intersections of the physical and digital, reconfiguring the structures of vision and systems of perception.

New Scale is a media platform that explores current thinking and sensibilities in the creative fields of design, art, music, and architecture. Through interviews and curated content, it brings together diverse global practices to offer readers new sources of inspiration.
In addition to publishing, New Scale organizes exhibitions and sells limited-edition products, translating information into experiential encounters. By quietly engaging perception and imagination, the platform aims to create moments of inquiry within the everyday.