Milan isn’t short on spectacle. Between its design fairs, fashion weeks, and gallery pop-ups, the city practically runs on creative collisions. But every now and then, something cuts through. On a cold October night inside the vast steel space of Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, that something was Sensorium Worlds.
The event, born from a year-long collaboration between IQOS and the Italian design provocateur Stefano Seletti, wasn’t about product but rather about process and the strange, electric energy that comes from two seemingly opposite worlds meeting in the middle. Seletti, a man famous for turning the mundane into the surreal, brought his offbeat imagination; IQOS brought its platform Curious X, an ongoing experiment in what happens when innovation stops being corporate rhetoric and becomes a creative language.
The collaboration began back in April during Milan Design Week, when the duo unveiled an installation that reimagined the Italian piazza through light and movement. It was playful but it hinted at something bigger. That spark evolved months later at Seletti’s Cicognara studio, where 20 artists, designers, and curators from around the world gathered for the Curious Minds workshop. There were no briefs given to the artists but just conversation, sketches, and the kind of ideas that only happen when people are given the freedom to ask “what if?”.
By the time Sensorium Worlds opened, the question had become an atmosphere. The industrial hall filled with light and sound, transformed into a landscape of sensory dialogue. Sculptural projections washed over the walls; Swiss electronic duo Adriatique were surprise guests that performed until the early hours of the morning. The night’s centrepiece (the unveiling of the IQOS ILUMA i x SELETTI Limited Edition) was treated like a design object or rather, an extension of Seletti’s world where function meets fantasy.
But what made the evening stand out was the sincerity behind it. “Curiosity is this inner power that makes us move forward,” said Stefano Volpetti, PMI’s Chief Consumer Officer. Seletti echoed that sentiment, describing the creative process as “a privilege filled with ideas and enthusiasm.” In an age where most brand activations feel like theatre, this one felt like a rare, honest experiment in collective imagination.
And while Milan has always been a city built on reinvention, Sensorium Worlds was a reminder that progress, whether in art, design, or technology, starts with the simplest impulse: to look at something ordinary and wonder what else it could be.