Under the bright May sun, I push open the door of the Palazzo dell'Arte as one enters a bustling kitchen: you can feel the creativity and the ideas simmering. Until November 9, 2025, the 24th^e The Triennial – entitled “Inequalities” – brings together 43 countries to speak frankly about the gaps that separate us. No jargon, no beating around the bush: just installations that grab you by the collar and shake you up.  

Immediately, the ground floor throws you into the dust of the city. Walls of screens display skyrocketing rents in Lagos and exploding fortunes in Miami: data designer Federica Fragapane transforms the figures into flashing neon signs, like a snack bar sign. Further on, a charred model recalls the Grenfell Tower fire; a loudspeaker broadcasts the voices of survivors, as direct as in a street report. The rationalist decor of the palace, designed by Giovanni Muzio, unwittingly engages in a dialogue with London's Trellick Tower or the buildings of the 13th arrondissement.^e Parisian district: same concrete, same open wounds. 

Upstairs, inequalities become a matter of skin color, gender, and even heartbeats. The project Radio Ballads Serpentine Galleries is handing out headphones; you can hear dockworkers, caregivers, and migrants humming about their daily lives—it's like a live podcast. Meanwhile, Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley stack photos of Hong Kong micro-apartments above Korean e-sports booths: when square footage is scarce, you live in a box, you sleep sitting up, you dream quietly. In front of a screen displaying my pulse as life expectancy in Nigeria is mentioned, I think about P : same wet stairs, same simmering anger.

In the courtyard, the focus shifts from observation to concrete solutions. The Norman Foster Foundation is assembling two prototype emergency shelters, made of galvanized steel tubing and recycled canvas woven by Lombard suppliers usually seen at Milano Unica or Première Vision: assembled in four hours, at a very competitive price. Nearby, Theaster Gates is stacking black bricks from Chicago's South Side: an altar that speaks of mourning and rebirth. The same conversation continues on stage, where Hans Ulrich Obrist leads rapid-fire debates, stopwatch in hand. And since Milan refuses to keep everything to itself, a truck emblazoned with "Triennale on Tour" will travel through eight municipalities, offering citizen mapping workshops and community dinners orchestrated by chef Cesare Battisti – his orange peel risotto pays homage to the invisible seasonal workers of Lombardy's rice paddies.

And because ideas also need a place to be, here are the haunts where Milanese art is remaking the world. At the time of theappetizer, Head to Bar Basso (via Plinio) where the Negroni Sbagliato has been flowing since 1947, much to the delight of designers and curators; for an espresso straight out of Wes Anderson's dream, step inside Bar Luce at the Fondazione Prada; beneath Camparino's frescoes in Galleria, the colors of the future are debated, while at Caffè Triennale, art students line up their sketchbooks overlooking Parco Sempione. The nights linger at Carlo e Camilla in Segheria, a former sawmill transformed into a minimalist canteen, or on Giacomo Arengario's terrace overlooking the Duomo: glasses raised, projects sketched out, the city becomes a workshop. 

To navigate the teeming mass, here are the five national pavilions you can't miss: Brazil opens the ball with "Favela Futures", repurposing materials from favelas to imagine inclusive metropolises; Japan responds with "Circular Futures", modular temples made of compressed hemp celebrating the art of recycling; Kenya exhibits "Grounded Growth", a greenhouse of drought-resilient species; the United States presents "Data Divide", a bath of XXL infographics and generative AI on the digital divide; finally, France traces "Shared Horizons", a sensitive route from industrial wastelands to shared gardens.

As I leave, I see a kid doodling the Milan skyline in his notebook. His colored pencils fill in the gaps between the towers and the pavilions—as if, with a single stroke, the pieces could be pieced back together. Perhaps that's the simple lesson conveyed by "Inequalities": as long as we draw, we bring things together.

Milan Triennale
Palazzo dell'Arte
Viale Alemagna 6, Milan (Italy)
Until November 9, 2025 

triennale.org