Fondazione Prada traces ancient trade routes through Global Antiquity
A sweeping exhibition opening at Fondazione Prada examines the profound cultural exchanges that shaped the Mediterranean and Asian worlds across fourteen centuries, drawing together more than 150 artefacts and artworks.
AI-assisted voice playback. Starts only when you choose Play.
Fondazione Prada opens Global Antiquity on 5 November, an ambitious research project that rewrites the narrative of the ancient world as one bound by intercontinental dialogue rather than isolated civilisations. Curated by Salvatore Settis, Anna Anguissola and Chiara Ballestrazzi, the exhibition draws together more than 150 works and objects spanning fourteen centuries, from approximately 600 BC to 1000 AD, to illuminate the vast networks of exchange that connected the Mediterranean and Asia.
The exhibition design, conceived by Rem Koolhaas and AMO/OMA, orchestrates this expansive narrative through architectural space, allowing objects to speak across time and geography. Sculptures, ceramics, textiles and other artefacts emerge not as isolated treasures but as evidence of a world shaped by merchants, pilgrims, and ideas flowing along silk roads and sea routes. The objects themselves carry the fingerprints of cultural translation and synthesis, revealing how artistic traditions mingled and transformed as they travelled.
What Global Antiquity proposes is a more fluid understanding of antiquity itself, one that challenges the Western habit of viewing Greek and Roman achievement as a self contained achievement. Instead, the exhibition traces the constant trickle and torrent of influence that moved eastward and westward, northward and southward, reshaping how we might understand the aesthetic and intellectual foundations of the societies we inherit from.
The exhibition runs at Fondazione Prada in Milan through 2025. Full details and opening hours are available at Fondazione Prada’s website.
Imagery courtesy of Fondazione Prada (@fondazioneprada).