Cosmic Resonance by Sten Studio: Sculpting Celestial Memory at Alcova During Milano Design Week 2025
- Melinda Voight
- Apr 6
- 5 min read
During Milano Design Week 2025, from April 7th - April 13th, Alcova will become a gateway between the earthly and the celestial as Mexico City-based Sten Studio unveils Cosmic Resonance — an immersive exhibition that will blur the lines between contemporary sculpture, natural stone design, and cosmic reflection. This latest body of work will offer visitors a passage into the unseen — a realm where cosmic energies meet human creation, and natural stone becomes a vessel of memory, myth, and motion.
The vision of Cosmic Resonance begins not with form, but with feeling — a profound reverence for the divine forces that have inspired humanity across cultures and time. As ancient civilizations looked skyward to find meaning in planetary alignments and celestial rhythms, Sten Studio channels this same wonder into a contemporary language of material and design. Through 10 towering totems and 11 sculptural side tables, the exhibition will bridge the mystical with the material, the infinite with the intimate.
We at LO'AMMI had the unique opportunity of catching up with the founder of Stein Studio, Jose Schnaider, to dive further into this collection. While speaking to the emotional undercurrent of the exhibition, Jose explains:
“For me, resonance is a form of silent communication — a vibration that bypasses language and reaches something deeper in us. In the context of this exhibition, it’s about tuning into the frequency of the stones, the space, and even each other. I hope visitors don’t just observe the pieces, but feel them — like echoes in the body, like déjà vu. It’s less about understanding and more about remembering the energy within ourselves.”
The exhibition space, under the artistic direction of Jorge Brown, will be imagined as an immersive labyrinth. Visitors will move among metallic pedestals, their paths guided by a flowing terrain of pastel blue sand — a symbolic terrain that evokes both earthly deserts and galactic landscapes. A curated soundscape, inspired by cosmic frequencies, will envelop the installation, tuning the senses to the exhibition’s theme of resonance: the echo between the divine and the human.
Cosmic Resonance will be anchored in two complementary collections: Cosmic Relics and Cosmic Traces. Each collection will tell a different part of the same story — one rooted in celestial observation, the other in the creative process of transformation.
Cosmic Relics: The Sculpture of Celestial Alignments
In Cosmic Relics, Sten Studio will present a series of sculptural totems that serve as abstract monuments to cosmic order. These vertical compositions, crafted from lava stone, blue calcite, pink onyx, fluorite, and other rich minerals, are inspired by planetary alignment and ritualistic symbolism. Each totem will represent a facet of life, capturing the grounding energy of volcanic rock or the clarity of crystal formations. With their towering, totemic stature, pieces like Cosmic Relics 7.1 — composed of nine distinct stones — will appear as timeless sentinels of cosmic balance, drawing the eye upward and inward.
Reflecting on why stone is his medium of choice, Schnaider shares:
“Stones connected with me in many ways. At first, I was drawn to their beauty — but then something shifted. They began awakening something inside of me, and when I started paying attention to that feeling, my life entered a kind of virtuous loop. As I deepened my connection with nature and the universe, I began to understand that we are part of something much bigger — and when you truly feel that, the universe starts to align with you.
Stones carry the memory of the Earth, formed by pressure, heat, and time — just like we’re shaped by our own experiences. What moves me most about them is their silence. They don’t shout, but they endure. They witness. I see in them a reflection of celestial bodies: quiet, powerful, eternal presences. Working with stone allows me to ground energetic and cosmic ideas into physical form — to bring a sense of the heavens down to Earth, literally.”
These are not mere sculptures, but relics in the truest sense: vessels of history, mystery, and meditative presence. By honoring the intrinsic power of each stone, Sten Studio will reveal the divine in the everyday and the eternal in the ephemeral.
Cosmic Traces: Manifesting the Ephemeral
If Cosmic Relics are monuments to permanence, Cosmic Traces will celebrate impermanence — fleeting impressions of celestial movement made tangible. Each side table will appear as a sculptural echo, a trace left by some galactic encounter. Combinations of cotton candy pink onyx, lapis lazuli, Coca-Cola onyx, and red travertine will swirl in unexpected geometries, evoking the idea of celestial choreography and the unseen forces that shape our daily lives.
“These collections live in tension,” says Schnaider, “between the eternal nature of the stones and the fleeting energy of the alignments or traces they reference. Cosmic Relics speaks to the moment of planetary alignment — something ephemeral — captured in material that has existed for millions of years. Cosmic Traces are like fossilized gestures, attempts to preserve movement, memory, or impact. Both collections seek to elevate the everyday — to remind us that we’re constantly surrounded by the sacred, if we choose to notice it.”
Cosmic Traces by Sten Studio, courtesy of the studio.
These tables will not simply support objects — they will become contemplative surfaces, portals to deeper thought. Through material and form, Cosmic Traces will ask: what invisible energies shape our reality? How do the intangible forces of the universe leave their imprint on the human soul?
Celestial Archaeology in Contemporary Design
With Cosmic Resonance, Sten Studio will offer more than a design showcase — it will present a new mode of celestial archaeology. Stones, each with their own geological timeline, will be arranged to articulate a new mythos of harmony between humanity and the cosmos. It is a search for alignment — not just of planets, but of purpose.
Reflecting on his process, Schnaider adds:
“These stones connect me to deep time — to something far beyond the human scale — and that opens a door to create with more reverence, presence, and emotion. When you feel their energy, you begin to sense how certain frequencies live within them. From there, you can compose pieces that resonate with those vibrations — building color palettes that lean toward feminine or masculine energies, creating subtle emotional links for the people who live with these objects.”
Founded in the heart of one of the world’s richest stone deposits, Sten Studio approaches design with a deep respect for the natural world. To them, minerals are not just materials but muses — vessels of the earth’s energy, transformed through human hands into expressions of reverence. Cosmic Resonance will extend this philosophy into the metaphysical, reminding us that we, too, are shaped by unseen forces: gravity, memory, longing, time.
At Alcova during Milano Design Week 2025, Sten Studio will offer more than sculptural beauty — it will gift visitors a moment of alignment with something far beyond. A reminder that amidst the fleeting pace of modern life, the cosmos continues its quiet, eternal dance — and perhaps, so will we.
Explore more about Sten Studio's work and philosophy here or follow them on Instagram at @sten.studio.
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