sara ricciardi’s serotonin floats inside the pinacoteca di brera
At a moment when contemporary life is defined by overstimulation and emotional fatigue, Serotonin – The Chemistry of Happiness, Sara Ricciardi’s immersive installation at the Pinacoteca di Brera proposes a spatial response to how pleasure is produced, perceived, and sustained. Presented during Milan Design Week 2026, the inflatable structure floats inside the loggiato of the historic building, transforming it into a responsive, sensorial environment that translates a biochemical process into lived experience. Developed in collaboration with American Express, the project is open to the public from April 21st to 26th, 2026.
Asked what she hopes visitors take away from the installation, Ricciardi points to an immediate, almost instinctive response. ‘Give them a smile, you know, something that can also be a deeper level of understanding,’ Sara Ricciardi tells designboom, framing the installation as an immediate emotional trigger before it unfolds into something more layered.
all images by Giuseppe Miotto e Marco Cappelletti Studio
a pulsing environment shaped by breath and rhythm
The Milan-based team at Sara Ricciardi Studio reinterprets serotonin not as an abstract scientific concept, but as something spatial, atmospheric, and embodied. Inflatable forms gently expand and contract across the loggiato, introducing a slow choreography that recalls breathing and heartbeat. Light, color, and sound operate in sync, producing a continuous sensory pulse that moves through the space rather than remaining fixed within it.
‘It’s an organic sculpture, air sculpture, with these super bright colors that give you these good vibrations,’ Ricciardi tells us, describing the installation as a living system. Visitors enter what reads as a living landscape. The installation behaves like an organism that subtly reacts through rhythm and repetition. This temporal dimension becomes central, happiness is not framed as a static condition but as a fluctuating state that emerges, peaks, and dissolves.
The project constructs an environment where perception is slightly destabilized. Chromatic gradients and optical patterns refract across inflated surfaces, dissolving edges and distorting depth. Bodies are absorbed into color fields, while movement through the space triggers shifting visual effects.
inflatable, multicolored forms stretch across the loggiato of Pinacoteca di Brera
the chemistry of happiness as spatial narrative
Ricciardi sets up a deliberate tension with the architectural context. The softness and mutability of the installation contrast with the weight and permanence of Pinacoteca di Brera’s stone sculptures. This juxtaposition sharpens the reading of both: the historic loggia becomes more rigid, the installation more alive.‘We wanted to arrive with these sinuous shapes in order to remember how important it is to create this dialogue between the rigid structure and the organic shape,’ she explains.
Rather than illustrating serotonin, the installation stages its effects, asking what activates pleasure and how long it lasts, framing happiness as a transient biological response shaped by encounters, movement, and sensory input.
‘Every time we have to start with a project, in my studio, we pick up words,’ Ricciardi notes. ‘And here, we had ”arts, loggiato, statues, important thinkers, pleasure of art.”’ From this constellation, the concept emerged intuitively. ‘So we were thinking, what we have. Something that relates all these words, and pleasure, serotonin, you know? Something that actually you can feel in your body and fill you up with a warm, beautiful feeling,’ she adds.
air-filled volumes contrast with the rigid stone architecture of the historic courtyard
between excess and absence
Ricciardi positions the project within a broader reflection on contemporary experience, where stimuli are constant and often amplified. The installation proposes a subtle threshold: too much stimulation overwhelms, too little diminishes. What remains is a search for equilibrium that is never fixed.‘Sometimes, we should remember that serotonin is something that we activate in our body by ourselves, just receiving a hug,’ she reflects.
This balance is spatialized through contrast. ‘Here you have such a soft airy structure, but if you have too much air, you just fly away. And the point is being in the middle of the two forces,’ Ricciardi says, describing the installation’s equilibrium between expansion and control.
Set against the historic architecture, this tension becomes symbolic. ‘We have an incredible, raw, rigid structure, made out of stone, and stone is super powerful. But it doesn’t let you go anywhere. You stay just here, So you have to be in between, in his powerful aspect of air and stone,’ she continues. ‘And this dialogue is very important to cultivate always,’ Ricciardi concludes.
the installation weaves between columns | image ©designboom
subtle gradients and optical color transitions saturate the installation | image ©designboom
suspended forms hover between arches
the inflatable structure interacts with the historic balustrade | image ©designboom
chromatic volumes frame the classical busts
visitors move through the installation as it unfolds across the loggiato | image ©designboom
Sara Ricciardi, within the immersive, breathing environment
project info:
name: Serotonin – The Chemistry of Happiness
designer: Sara Ricciardi / Sara Ricciardi Studio | @sararicciardistudio
commissioned by: American Express Italy | @americanexpress_it
location: Pinacoteca di Brera, loggiato (via Brera 28)
event: Fuorisalone 2026
dates: April 21 – 26, 2026
opening hours: 9:30 AM – 6:45 PM
designboom’s milan design week 2026 coverage is supported by geberit. fueled by a share curiosity, we join forces to explore the hidden exhibitions, must-attend talks, and standout installations that define this year’s landscape. this collaborative lens includes a deep dive into RŌS—an immersive exploration of water, light, and the poetry of flow created by atelier oï. discover the installation firsthand at the new geberit experience center at opificio 31, via tortona 31.
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