Independent curator & design advisor
Independent curator and design advisor, Federica Sala has made design the gravitational centre of her life.
With an interdisciplinary approach, she is in constant dialogue with art, architecture and publishing in relation to exhibitions, commercial or informative projects.
Highly curious by nature, she firmly believes in the power of transformation, which she has made into a pillar of her profession.
Born in Milan, but with extensive experience gained in France, she worked for five years in the design department of the Centre Pompidou in Paris working with high-calibre designers such as Philippe Starck and Ettore Sottsass Jr, as well as with Fabrica, the research centre of the Benetton group. After this came the Enel Contemporanea years, working on a project for H+ together with Francesco Bonami, which resulted in her working with, among others, Carsten Höller and the Starn brothers.
Between 2010 and 2019 she co-founded and co-directed PS, one of the first agencies created to unite content and communication. PS curated the ‘Object’ section of the Milan International Fair of Modern and Contemporary Art (miart), the exhibitions of the 5VIE Art+ Design district (Max Lamb, Raw-Edges, Sabine Marcelis, Matteo Cibic) and the artists’ residences (Italian villages) project for Airbnb.
In 2018, together with Patricia Urquiola, she curated the monographic exhibition dedicated to the Triennale di Milan, which was followed in 2021 by the exhibition: Giulio Castelli. La cultura imprenditoriale del sistema design, marking the opening of the ADI Design Museum.
She currently continues to work as an independent curator collaborating in Italy and abroad with Italian and international institutions and agencies such as Buccellati, Dolce&Gabbana, Cassina, Rizzoli International, Six Senses, Venini and Assab One, focusing on the transversality of the various disciplines related to the world of design.
Since 2021, she’s one of the Italian Design Ambassador for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In January 2025, she entered the design commission of CNAP ( Centre National des Arts Plastiques). Since July 2023, she’s the EIC of The Good Life Italia.
Latest news
Aquae Mirabiles | BUCCELLATI
During Milan Design Week 2026, Buccellati unveiled Aquae Mirabiles, an immersive installation by Luke Edward Hall curated by Federica Sala and designed by Balich Wonder Studio.
Through his drawings, Luke Edward Hall was able to give artistic expression to the concept, transforming it into a tangible, evocative visual experience.
The exhibition celebrated the Caviar silverware collection and its iconic microsphere motif. With a language that blends epic grandeur and poetic sensitivity, the installation immersed visitors in the Maison’s universe, creating a luminous and evocative narrative deeply rooted in Italian tradition.
Through a series of immersive environments, enriched by watercolor drawings by Luke Edward Hall, the installation retraced the history of Italian caviar, evoking a visual universe that spans eras and iconographies. Even before entering, visitors were introduced to the mysteries of the waters through Roman mythological figures drawn as statues by the English artist, including Neptune, the Naiads, Tiberinus, god of the Tiber, and the sirens.
The exhibition, first presented during Milan Design Week 2025, was subsequently on view in Warsaw until May 2025. Installed within the domestic spaces of Villa Gawroński, home of the Foundation and a private museum dedicated to art and design, the exhibition offers an overview of the new generation of Polish designers, connecting their work to the tradition of Polish craft and design.
Arpa® — together with the Broadview Materials brands FENIX®, Formica®, Homapal® and Getacore® — presented ArchiThoughts–ArchiTouch, a project involving six international architecture studios — Marion Mailaender, Parasite 2.0, RedDuo Studio, STORAGEMILANO, Studio GGSV and ZIMMER — within an installation designed by the architecture studio (AB)NORMAL.
For the MDW 2026 edition, the participating architecture and design studios were invited to develop six furniture pieces conceived as domestic micro-architectures.
LINDBERG: Visionary By Design, published by Rizzoli, is a tribute to four decades of excellence, innovation and elegance. Page after page, readers are guided through the story of the brand — from its founding in 1986 through the visionary ideas of Henrik Lindberg and Poul-Jørn Lindberg, to its acquisition by Kering Eyewear under the leadership of Roberto Vedovotto, up to the present day. The book is curated by Federica Sala, with textual contributions by Caroline Corbetta, art curator, and Anne-Louise Sommer, Director of Designmuseum Denmark.
Six Senses’ first urban hotel translates the contemporary vision of Roman classicism from the architectural project by Studio Patricia Urquiola into the selection of artworks. Site-specific works by Alberto Selvestrel, Analogia Project, Andrea Mauti, Caterina Licitra Ponti, Beatrice Bonafini, Paolo Giordano, Sara Salvemini, Tarek Abbar, T-Yong Chung, Eliška Konečná, Marco Emmanuele, and POL Polloniato are featured.
For the second year in a row, Dolce&Gabbana presents eleven young international designers at Milan Design Week 2024 with the second edition of Gen D – Generazione Designer. Selected by Federica Sala, designers Byungsub Kim, Hannah Lim, Jie Wu, Riccardo Cenedella, Ella Bulley, Thabisa Mjo, Laurids Gallée, Mestix, Mingyu Xu, and Touche Touche experimented with Italian artisanal techniques in a cultural mosaic celebrating diversity and innovation.
The intervention by AMDL CIRCLE and Michele De Lucchi transforms the terrace into a modern Pantheon with a magical red garden to celebrate the art of Italian silver and glass. Inside the structure, Lily Scout Kwong’s botanical installation, featuring carnivorous plants, engages in a dialogue between the floral collections of the Milanese maison and pieces from the recent collaboration with Venini.