In Milan, Rooms Studio examines Georgia’s shifting social landscape

Georgia is a country with a complicated modern history. Straddling East and West, this mountainous and somewhat isolated part of the Caucasus has recently endured further upheaval by the election of a new government that wants to realign with Russia, and move away from the EU. The Tbilisi-based duo Rooms Studio have long used their country’s unique cultural identity and current events as a driving narrative in their work, incorporating and elevating Georgian craft, traditions, and day-to-day life into all of their projects.

Now, designers Keti Toloraia and Nata Janberidze are increasingly concerned for the future of their homeland. ‘We’ve been very touched with the protests going on in Georgia, in Tbilisi, and we also took part,’ Janberidze explains. ‘We care a lot about our country.’

Rooms Studio presents Sub-currents (At work) during Salone del Mobile 2025

These protests against the newly inaugurated Georgian Dream party's anti-EU rhetoric form the political sub-current that threads together and lends its name to Rooms Studio’s latest exhibition. ‘Sub-currents (At work)’ is a solo presentation hosted by Studio Frey Barth during Milan Design Week 2025, and includes several new works by the studio. Among them is a series of expandable or interactive tables that represent those used traditionally by Georgian families for Supra celebrations, and which were also used as part of an act of solidarity along the main avenue in Tbilisi this past New Year.

‘There was a very inspiring night during the New Year celebrations this year when people sat and gathered at tables joined to reach a kilometre in length,’ says Janberidze. ‘During Supra, people gather for the feast and they have dinner together. But these tables say more than “dinner”. They’re more symbolic.’ Supras are usually led by men, but these tables – designed by two women – purposefully exude feminine qualities through their design.

The most physically substantial of the three new tables, the ‘N1’, is crafted from reclaimed oak from demolished houses. ‘We always use that material in our works,’ says Janberidze. ‘It's a part of our practice.’ The table’s blackened-top leaves slide open from the centre, and two additional pieces stored on its base frame can be added into the gap, turning it from a ten to a 14-person table.

More slender in form, the ‘N2’ features an industrial-style brushed steel frame topped with plywood that’s finished in oak veneer. One table tucks neatly under the other, but can be rolled out on casters when needed to expand the design from an eight to a 12-seater. Meanwhile, the ‘N3’ has a top surface comprising square modules that are each wrapped in white cloth fabric.

These squares pop out so that the fabric can be replaced or swapped for another, to create a quilted effect if desired, or an alternative material like glass or stone. ‘It can be even replaced with some ceramic tiles,’ Janberidze suggests. Rooms Studio’s metal and glass ‘Simple Armoured Table’ from 2018, and the blackened steel ‘Alchemy Table’ from 2017 also feature in the installation.

At the back of the exhibition space is another long table, covered with a continuous ream of paper that appears to have been ejected from an office-grade printer. It’s length is scrawled repeatedly with the word ‘ადამიანის’ – or adamiani – which means ‘human’ in Georgian and is derived from the biblical name Adam. It is written in the Mkhedruli script at the beginning of the paper, then slowly becomes abstracted further along until it resembles a list of signatures on a petition. ‘It's like a mantra, and is symbolic to the same protests,’ Janberidze describes. ‘It's very important that each human's voice is heard, and it’s also like a signature.’

Rooms Studio has also extended its Streets Series collection – influenced by the ingenuity of Georgians who make furniture for themselves from the materials at hand – with a pair of floor lamps that appear to be assembled from found parts and stuck together with chewing gum. ‘We were inspired by the workers at the construction site of one of our interior design projects, who made lights for themselves out of torches and sticks,’ says Janberidze.

The ‘gum’ is actual pink silicone, which is wrapped around the major joints of the brushed aluminium components that form the ‘Re-Assembled’ lamps. The designs speak to both the resourcefulness of a people, and the reconstruction of a country that’s been pulled apart and pieced back together many times in recent history.

Finally, a set of ceramic vessels joins the studio’s ‘Wild Minimalism’ collection for Bitossi Ceramiche. Ceramics are one of the oldest traditions in Georgia, which is also considered the birthplace of wine, so these reinterpretations of historic vessels coated in a dark-blue-black hue recall the country’s role in antiquity, and form a dialogue with the past. Each of the four vessels stands on a black-lacquered podium, which the duo crafted individually to add a more linear, geometric counterpart to the curvaceous forms sat atop. ‘They stand like shadows to our retrospective of work,’ Janberidze muses.

The sub-currents that connect all of these starkly different pieces offer an overview of a country in a fragile state and facing turbulent times, and represent how the designers themselves are reacting to this.

‘They all have a message and a meaning that's really honest about how we feel inside, and what we want to say and express,’ says Janberidze. ‘So it's natural to translate it into our design work.’ And at a time when much of the world is facing political uncertainty, this installation stands as an example to other designers and creatives who want to channel their anger or anxiety into their work, and make a statement both through beauty and utility.

roomsstudio.com

‘Sub-currents (At work)’ is on view at Via Kramer 32, Milan 20129 until April 12th, 2025

Read about more of the fair's must-sees in our Milan Design Week 2025 guide