One of the events we were most looking forward to during this Milan Design Week is without a doubt the one created by TOILETPAPER in collaboration with Walter Chandoha. This year, inside the spaces of TOILETPAPER LIVING, TOILETWALTER PAPERCHANDOHA takes shape, an exhibition that is both a show and an editorial project, marking the collective’s third consecutive year taking part in Milan’s design week.

The starting point is the meeting of two visual worlds that seem far apart: on one side, TOILETPAPER’s hyper-saturated, provocative and surreal aesthetic; on the other, the rigorous and iconic gaze of Walter Chandoha, the undisputed master of cat photography. The result is a visual short circuit that transforms the image of the cat — historically associated with a domestic and reassuring dimension — into something uncanny, almost unsettling, perfectly in line with the magazine’s language.

Inside the apartment, the domestic space is completely rewritten: 20 framed photographs engage in dialogue with two video works integrated into the screens, dissolving the boundary between exhibition and environment. It is no longer about simply looking at images, but inhabiting them. Visitors step into a total visual narrative, where every surface helps build an immersive experience that oscillates between irony, tension and pop aesthetics.

The project follows the TOILETWALTER PAPERCHANDOHA calendar, the first editorial collaboration between TOILETPAPER and the Chandoha archive, which quickly sold out among collectors and retailers. The exhibition expands on that universe, also anticipating the release of the future publication scheduled for 2027, while the event will also premiere the new issue of the magazine, Toiletpaper 21, together with the volume Family Cats From the Archive 1949–1962, published by Damiani Books, which gathers black-and-white photographs, many of them unseen for more than half a century, accompanied by a contribution from Grace Coddington.

What emerges is not just a celebration of the image, but a true exercise in visual cross-pollination. TOILETPAPER continues to push its language beyond the limits of the printed page, turning every project into a coherent and recognizable ecosystem where photography, design and storytelling merge. In this case, the dialogue with Chandoha’s legacy is not nostalgic, but radical: a way of rewriting the past through a contemporary aesthetic unafraid of excess.

TOILETWALTER PAPERCHANDOHA will be on view until April 26.