Murano glass returns to illuminate St. Mark’s Square this winter with the third edition of Murano Illumina il Mondo (Murano Lights Up The World), the exhibition project that shines a spotlight on the island of Murano via the winning alliance between glass and contemporary art. The initiative is organised and promoted by Comune di Venezia and The Venice Glass Week, with financial support from Pentagram Stiftung and Camera di Commercio di Venezia Rovigo through the Azienda Speciale Opportunità e Mercati.
From 21st November 2025 to 1st March 2026, twelve magnificent chandeliers will be exhibited in St. Mark’s Square – “the most beautiful drawing room in the world” – under the vaults of the Procuratie Vecchie. The chandeliers are the result of the collaboration between internationally renowned artists and designers and some of Murano’s most prestigious glass furnaces. The participating artists and designers were invited to reinterpret an everyday object, the chandelier, using both traditional and modern glassmaking techniques. Their designs were realised by some of Murano’s most talented glass masters, renowned for their remarkable technical skills, centuries-old techniques and innovative experimentation.
The artists and designers were selected by a Curatorial Committee composed of: Rosa Barovier Mentasti, glass historian; David Landau, Trustee of Pentagram Stiftung; Chiara Squarcina, Scientific Director of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia; curators Mario Codognato, Sarah Nichols and Alma Zevi; and 20th-century Murano glass expert Giordana Naccari. The coordination between artists and furnaces was managed by Matteo Silverio.
Simone Crestani, in collaboration with Berengo Studio, presents Primavera d’Oriente: a chandelier inspired by designs from the 1920s. A blossoming borosilicate glass branch, dotted with pink buds, weaves through and offsets the linear structure of smooth glass, recomposing it into a poetic balance that fuses geometry and naturalism.
Ru Xiao Fan, together with Effetre and Seguso Gianni, creates Inside/Outside, a cage-shaped chandelier in which a number of birds remain trapped. while others take flight. The work reflects on the choice between safety and freedom, evoking the myth of Eden as well as the “invisible cages” of the present day: leaving behind the illusion of protection demands courage, but only those who dare are able to discover the true meaning of flight.
Joana Vasconcelos, in collaboration with Berengo Studio, transforms the chandelier into a living organism with Cuore Infinito: a luminous heart pulsing with light and colour, a monumental symbol of passion, resilience, and transformation. Suspended between tension and harmony, the form reinterprets a domestic object as an emotional and universal icon.
Lucio Bubacco, in collaboration with Vetreria 3 Artistico Lampadari, presents Musica Angelica, a composition of thirty arms and fifty ivory-coloured glass angels playing classical instruments. Expanding across three levels like an ascending symphony, the work merges light, music, and form into vehicles of purity, spirituality, and rebirth, culminating in a spiral that reaches toward infinity.
Chahan Minassian, with Nicola Moretti Murano, reimagines one of his design icons with Acqua Rings: overlapping glass discs dance in hues inspired by the Venetian lagoon, forming a minimalist yet vibrant chandelier where circular motion evokes fluidity and shimmering reflections of water.
Michela Cattai, together with Simone Cenedese, presents Trama di Luce, an interlacing of blown glass alternating between transparency and opacity. Light flows through the composition like a dynamic fabric, creating chromatic and tactile vibrations that pay homage to the Muranese tradition while reinterpreting it in a contemporary key.
Luca Nichetto, with Barovier & Toso, merges craftsmanship and technology in a work that reinterprets the silhouette of the classic chandelier in a contemporary key, composed of thirty-four centrifugal glass discs. Each disc contains a spiral – an imprint of the artisan’s gesture. The light diffused from a central axis unites the forms in a harmonious dialogue between past and future, where centuries-old techniques meet innovative design.
Massimo Micheluzzi, in collaboration with Vetreria Anfora, presents Calamaro: a chandelier with organic forms evoking marine tentacles. The glass captures the fluid movement of water and the Venetian lagoon, transforming the chandelier into a poetic, living creature—an embodiment of matter breathing in rhythm with its environment.
Christian Pellizzari, together with Salviati, envisions Nature Rebirth: a suspended work composed of blown-glass eggs and tentacles crafted using the bussole technique of Rezzonico chandeliers. Ancient material dialogues with an innovative micro-LED system, celebrating nature’s continual rebirth through light, fragility, and strength.
Irene Cattaneo, with Amadi, creates The Observatory: with its eight hand-crafted “lunar” spheres, it is a tribute to the glassmaking mastery of Murano, where the classical sommerso incamiciato technique is skillfully combined with the use of metallic powders to create a luminous, deep effect.
The students of Scuola Abate Zanetti, with master Eros Raffael, present Life’s Meaning: a collective work born from the encounter between centuries-old tradition and the creativity of young glassmakers. The chandelier is composed of glass leaves decorated with filaments in varying shades of blue, symbolizing the cycle of life. The leaves evoke water—the origin of all forms—and through their harmonious movement, they tell a story of time, transformation, and the eternal continuity of existence.
Inspired in part by glass samples from the archives of Le Stanze del Vetro on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore and by the ceiling of the Santa Lucia railway station, Pool of Light, designed by F Taylor Colantonio with Signoretto Lampadari in collaboration with Salvadore, envisions a ray of sunlight caught in a swirling current of the lagoon.
Photo credit: Giorgio Bombieri
