S+DLH and VASTO gallery bring contemporary art and collectible design under one roof

S+DLH AND VASTO SELECT OBJECTS TO LIVE INSIDE ARCHITECTURE

Madrid-based studio SIERRA+DELAHIGUERA (S+DLH) joins forces with Barcelona’s VASTO Gallery for Capsule 04 · Selected to live inside architecture, an exhibition bringing together contemporary art, collectible design and objects from the studio’s own archive. Installed at S+DLH Gallery on Calle Orellana in Madrid, the project looks beyond the usual art-versus-furniture divide, instead considering how objects, artworks and architecture can comfortably occupy the same room — without anyone needing to stay on their designated pedestal.

The exhibition marks the beginning of an ongoing collaboration between S+DLH and VASTO, the Poblenou-based home gallery founded by Carmen Riestra. Rather than approaching art as a finishing touch added once an interior is complete, the partnership proposes a more integrated relationship: works represented by VASTO will continue to appear within future residential and commercial projects by the Madrid studio. Capsule 04 serves as an initial experiment in this shared language, connecting the two practices through materiality, atmosphere and an interest in how objects influence the perception of space.

POL AGUSTÍ, MAX MILÀ SERRA AND ESTHER GATÓN ENTER THE ROOM

Three artists from VASTO’s programme shape the exhibition. Pol Agustí, born in Barcelona and based in Mexico City, works between object, ritual and presence, often using clay and recovered materials to create forms that feel simultaneously familiar and difficult to place. Fired at low temperatures, his ceramics preserve traces of gesture, irregularity and fire, giving the material a deliberately direct quality while allowing apparently everyday forms to drift towards something more symbolic.

Barcelona-based Max Milà Serra takes a more precise route, bringing engineering, light and perception into minimal structures capable of shifting the atmosphere around them. His works are less concerned with simply illuminating a room than with quietly recalibrating it. Esther Gatón, meanwhile, works across sculpture, installation, audiovisual media and text. Her recent pieces use hand-dyed linen produced through slow, non-repeatable processes, turning variations of pigment, time and gesture into part of the work rather than imperfections to be corrected.

ARCHIVE PIECES JOIN NEW DESIGNS BY SIERRA+DELAHIGUERA

Alongside the artists represented by VASTO, S+DLH introduces pieces from its own design practice, including objects presented publicly for the first time and others recovered from an archive accumulated over the years. Removed from the logic of a conventional showroom, the works are arranged as part of a broader spatial composition in which authorship and category become somewhat less important than proximity, scale and material conversation. A lamp can behave almost like sculpture; a sculpture can begin to feel suspiciously at home.

This deliberate ambiguity sits at the centre of Capsule 04. Under the subtitle ‘Selected to live inside architecture’, the exhibition proposes collecting not as the accumulation of isolated statement pieces but as a way of constructing environments over time. Art, furniture, light and found objects are allowed to coexist without a strict hierarchy, forming interiors that feel assembled rather than styled. 

project info:

name: Capsule 04 · S+DLH x VASTO

studio: S+DLH | @sierra.delahiguera

gallery: VASTO | @vasto_gallery

location: Madrid, Spain

designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. See more project submissions from our readers here.