Polish design practices Zieta Studio and Pani Jurek Studio will each present material innovation at Material Matters London with their air-sculpted steel and colour-shifting ceramics.

Returning for its fifth London edition from 15-17 September 2026, Material Matters London presents its new home UNLOCKED in the heart of Shoreditch Design Week (SDW), as part of the annual London Design Festival.

Zieta Studio and Pani Jurek Studio will accompany around 40 exhibitors each selected for their commitment to material intelligence. Funded by Creative Industries Institute and the Polish Cultural Institute in London in collaboration with On&On Designs, the two installations bring the works of these two Polish studios into Shoreditch exploring materiality and Polish creativity.

This fifth iteration of this cross-media platform for material intelligence in architecture and design includes a dedicated ‘Cafe Conversations’ talks programme with thought leadership partner Berghaus – and will host these two Polish studios for a dedicated panel on Polish design. 

Zieta Studio presents ‘Whispers Bench’ lit by a constellation of Inox Lampin lighting pieces. 

Zięta will present the unique Whispers Bench with illuminated lighting at the fair’s entrance – a moment of pause for the arriving visitors. Architect and designer Oskar Zięta is known internationally for his innovation with FiDU – a process of free internal deformation that enables an ‘inflation’ of flat steel into complex structural forms. The Whispers Bench is an element from the public sculpture Whispers, sited at Ludgate Hill, Fleet Street Quarter, London (with iterations also shown at Maison&Objet Paris 2026, Impact ’26 Poznań, ICFF NYC’26 and LFA’26). 

First shown at the London Festival of Architecture 2025, the piece extends the sculpture’s dialogue with the surrounding city and will welcome visitors at the entrance lobby, lit by Zięta’s constellation of Lampin lighting pieces. These selected pieces embody Zięta’s structural way of thinking, representing a precise spatial record of pressure, time, and resistance.

“These forms emerge from a dialogue with the material and its internal forces, balancing a ‘controlled loss of control’ at a specific point of creation,” says Oskar Zięta head of Zieta Studio, “Whispers began as a public sculpture, and at Material Matters it becomes something more intimate; a bench, a resting point, a place to pause inside the same structural language as you enter the fair“. 

Pani Jurek Studio presents ‘OP Ceramic Modular System’

Warsaw-based Pani Jurek Studio, run by Magda Jurek and Michał Borecki works at the intersection of ceramics, architecture and material culture, experimenting with fired-clay as an object that is both craft and a spatial element. 

They will present their distinctive OP Ceramic Modular System from the OP Object collection. An interactive structure composed of ceramic tiles that rotate around their own axes, creating open space dividers or mounted modular wall compositions; a living image that responds to users. It is an exploration of the relationship between colour and light as inseparable features where light creates colour and changes the relationships between colours. When the pieces are placed in a space, they form a living composition in which human presence plays a crucial role. Created especially for the Common Ground: Curated Connections exhibition at Fletcher Priest Architects, the piece will now occupy the grand entrance to Material Matters’ interior gallery.

“The OP objects are a tribute to colour, its ability to surprise, transform and delight and a way to shed light,“, say Magda Jurek and Michał Borecki, of Pani Jurek Studio. “Bringing the OP Collection to London lets us test our ideas about colour and light in a completely new space. Material Matters gathers people who think seriously about materials and is exactly the kind of conversation we want to have around our ceramics.”

“Polish design has an incredible depth of material knowledge and experimentation. Material Matters provides the ideal platform for the work of Zieta Studio and Pani Jurek to engage with London’s design community and gain wider international recognition.” say Anka Simone and Joanna Caron-Delion, Founders, On&On Designs. 

“Supporting Polish designers on international stages such as Material Matters is central to our mission. Zieta Studio and Pani Jurek represent two very different, but equally rigorous approaches to materials and we are proud to help bring this conversation to London within Shoreditch Design Week“, says Anna Tryc-Bromley, Polish Cultural Institute in London.

As part of the Café Conversations series, Agata Zięta from Zieta Studio and Michal Borecki from Pani Jurek will join a panel discussion entitled ‘Local Knowledge, Global Design: Poland’s creative industries’ with Samta Nadeem, Curatorial Director at STIR and Grant Gibson, founder of Material Matters (15 September 4pm). The talk will explore process-led making and material intelligence in Polish design. Collectively, these installations and panel discussion at Material Matters London offer a concentrated focus on how Polish studios are redefining material intelligence, from steel to ceramics, for an international audience. 

Panel Discussion: ‘Local Knowledge, Global Design: Poland’s creative industries’

• Tuesday 15 September 4pm. 
• Agata Zięta from Zieta Studio, Michal Borecki from Pani Jurek and Samta Nadeem, Curatorial Director at STIR will will explore process-led making and material intelligence in Polish design, chaired by Grant Gibson, Founder of Material Matters
• Free to attend. Register in advance for the fair. 

Registration: Free to Attend | Register 

Venue: UNLOCKED Shoreditch, 118 Curtain Road London EC2A 3PJ
Nearest stations: Shoreditch High Street, Old Street, Liverpool Street

See more Polish Design this September as part of the ‘Curated Connections‘ series in which On&On Designs continue to celebrate Polish design across two further venues: Mint Gallery’s Blueprint, featuring the work of Mati Sipiora, Formsophy and Tomek Rygalik; and Mandarin Oriental Mayfair’s Reflections, featuring Aneta Kocia, Magdalena Zarychta and Zieta Studio. This further underscores the breadth and depth of Polish design talent on show across the London Design Festival 2026.

Links to find out more:

Material Matters London Fair 

Shoreditch Design Week 

London Design Festival 

Mayfair Design District: