Artist collective Drift and design studios Garance Valée and Atra have presented work alongside dozens of others at nomadic festival Unique Design X’s second exhibition during Mexico City art week.

The show consisted of galleries and brands arranged around a large open space into fluid booths divided by reusable curtains, with a central social area and a large-scale installation – a pyramidal stack of timber covered in vines and filled with diffusers propagating scents by the installation creator, Xinú, a local brand part-owned by Mexican designer Héctor Esrawe.

Unique Design X held its second exhibition during Mexico City art week. Above photo and top photo by Christian Lamb

The timber used for the installation, as well as the flooring and curtains, were reused from the first edition last year – a move spurred by founder Morgan Morris Sans’ experience with the massive amount of waste generated by typical art fairs.

“When we sold Design Shanghai back in 2018 I decided that it was time to try to build a new model for fairs that were in many ways a metaphor of a new era,” Morris Sans told Dezeen.

It included an installation by local scent brand Xinú

She added that along with the more sustainable approach to exhibition design, Unique Design X – which has put on shows in Paris, Miami and Shanghai – also seeks to “break down walls” that have characterised the festival world.

This concept took physical shape in the short, seemingly broken, concrete walls that hemmed in the central social area of the fair.

The fair represented the increasing attention paid by the design world to the yearly art week, as Unique Design X chose the top floor of a building occupied by popular art fair Material for the exhibition.

Ernesto Tomayo showcased benches made with recycled steel

A departure from the white-walled gallery shows such as Material and Zona Maco, experiential aspects such as low lighting and the aforementioned scent diffusion were utilised in order to create a “sanctuary”, Morris Sans said.

However, she said that the idea was to show a design object’s “elevated status”, and curated the fair under the heading of N’est Pas Du Design – a play on René Magritte’s famous painting.

Unno Gallery showed work by Garance Valée

The experiential, elevated component of the fair was emphasised by its headline installation, which greeted guests at the top of a group of escalators.

Developed by Atra, the installation featured a “dystopian” space, covered with rocks and layered by smoke from a smoke machine. In the centre was a mirrored structure developed by wellness brand Morphus with relaxation beds.

Stone and metallic vinyl designs by Atra were placed on top of the landscape of rocks.

Carpenters Workshop Gallery showed works by Drift and Wendell Castle

Also of note was an installation of seating by local designer Esteban Tamayo, which featured pieces made of scrap metal, left relatively unfinished and compressed together for the bases of chairs.

Mexico City-based Unno Gallery showcased a collection of chairs by Valée.

International gallery Carpenters Workshop Gallery had a booth with stone stools by designer Vincenzo De Cotiis, a black-wood table by sculptor Wendell Castle and a lighting piece by Drift.

Also of note was an installation, called Family Affair, of experimental furniture, including wooden chairs with arms that appeared draped over metal bases by local firm Baba Estudio and gridded metal furniture by designer Roberto Michelsen.

A collection of metal furniture rendered by designer Pauline LePrince was given its own booth, with pieces from her newly conceived Nexum Collection that included a tall, slender steel pitcher.

Gridded furniture by Roberto Michelsen stood out during the fair

Last year, because of problems with customs, some of the designers recreated works meant to be exhibited at the fair in cardboard.

The fair was among a selection of design events that took place during the week, including an installation by local studio Davidpompa showcasing its collaboration with restaurant Contramar as well as a modernist home filled with contemporary design such as a rug collection by New York designer Eny Lee Parker for CC-Tapis.

The photography is courtesy of Unique Design X unless otherwise noted.

Unique Design X took place from 6 to 9 February in Mexico City. For more events, talks and fairs in architecture and design visit Dezeen Events Guide. 

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