The Room of Change at the 2019 Milan Triennale

Having previously worked with Accurat for MoMA’s 2017 blockbuster show Items: Is Fashion Modern?,↗ Antonelli once again turned to us to dream up, design, and build a dataviz artwork that encompassed the sweeping scope of her exhibition. We set out to draw a timeline that traced human interactions—with other people, with ideologies, with science, nature, etc.—to show incremental effects on the environment.

Stationed at the entrance of Broken Nature, our contribution would foreground the entire experience for visitors. It would also complement two large, freestanding screens projecting NASA photography of coastline–shifting changes to the environment, clocked over the course of 20 years. This type of imagery, which shows environmental degradation on a geological scale, is the type that most often accompanies reporting on climate change. With our dataviz, we wanted to provide contrast to the grand–scale of the projections with a work that brought the crisis “down to earth” in a capacity that people could understand and identify with.

Within each "Macro Topic," we focused on one geo–specific issue and two global subjects. For instance, under the umbrella of "Nature," we traced the disappearance of the Aral Sea in the Middle East, as well as humans’ impact on the environment and the effects of climate change. A section covering "Happiness" illustrated cases over time of depression in Uganda, and tracked worldwide consumption rates of tobacco and alcohol.

Upon entering, visitors might not have registered that the muted shapes, lines, and patterns flanking the NASA imagery were representations of data—much less that they covered the history of the Anthropocene age. Room of Change essentially takes the form of wallpaper to gently immerse viewers into the worldview of Broken Nature. The placid intricacy of the design beckons exploration.