From April 6 to 12, 2025, Sagarminaga Atelier took part in the official 5VIE circuit during Milan Design Week.
This unique platform, known for its curatorial approach and commitment to soulful craftsmanship, brings together each year a selection of works that blur the lines between design, art, and poetic materiality.

In that context, we presented Tuna Ex Machina, a 3.2-meter kinetic sculpture inspired by the Atlantic bluefin tuna — one of the most powerful, fast, and migratory creatures of the ocean. The piece was exhibited at Via Cesare Correnti, 14 – Room 1, where for six days it breathed before a diverse audience: designers, interior architects, curators, journalists, and passersby who crossed gazes with it.

A creature not just to see — but to feel

Tuna Ex Machina does not represent a fish. It represents a journey.
A passage between nature and machine, between the wild and the choreographed.

In the wild, the bluefin tuna travels thousands of kilometers each year, tracing invisible paths dictated by instinct. Our piece starts from that biological biography and reimagines it: here, the animal stops obeying nature and begins to move to the rhythm of a mechanical logic, articulated with precision.

Tuna Ex Machina draws inspiration from Deus Ex Machina, the ancient Greek theatrical device: a sudden force that appears on stage and shifts the scene.
In our version, it is not a god. It is a fish.

The result is a hybrid sculpture crafted from tinted esparto, hand-stitched metallic elements, and a motorized structure developed in our workshop, emitting a soft, rhythmic pulse.
The gesture is not decorative — it is respiratory. The sculpture does not merely occupy space: it transforms it.

An open dialogue with those who came close

During the exhibition week, many stopped in front of Tuna Ex Machina. Some asked questions. Others simply observed. Some returned the next day.
And in every case, something intangible happened: a connection. A gesture. An emotion. For us, that was the true success of the piece.

There were no screens, no intermediaries. Only movement, material, and gaze.

What we take with us

The experience in Milan was more than a presentation — it was a confirmation.
A validation of the path we’re carving out as a studio: fusing technique and emotion, tradition and forward-thinking, biology and design.

Tuna Ex Machina has returned home.
But its pulse continues.
And with it, the certainty that art, too, can be a living organism.