VATICAN DESIGN is an independent space dedicated to contemporary art, design, visual culture, and creative dialogue, located on the extraterritorial grounds of the Vatican. Conceived as a meeting point between the sacred and the contemporary, it creates a platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, thinkers, and audiences interested in exploring new forms of expression within the unique cultural and spiritual context of Rome and the Vatican.

Its distinctive location gives this dialogue an additional dimension. Situated on the extraterritorial grounds of the Vatican, VATICAN DESIGN exists within an exceptional cultural and symbolic context while developing its own independent contemporary identity. It seeks to create a bridge between a place associated with centuries of artistic and spiritual heritage and the questions, aesthetics, tensions, and creative languages of the present.

More than a gallery or exhibition venue, VATICAN DESIGN is conceived as a living creative environment — a place where art can be exhibited, discussed, questioned, experienced, and created collectively. Its programme brings together exhibitions, artist talks, workshops, film screenings, interdisciplinary projects, and experimental forms of artistic collaboration.

The space is divided into two complementary areas. The upper level is dedicated to cultural and artistic activity, hosting meetings, workshops, film presentations, exhibitions, talks, and encounters with artists and creators. It is a flexible space designed to encourage exchange, discussion, experimentation, and the development of new ideas.

The lower level functions as a concept store offering unconventional religious objects and contemporary spiritual design. Rather than reproducing the visual language of traditional devotional merchandise, the shop presents objects that reinterpret religious symbols through contemporary aesthetics, humour, design, fashion, and visual culture. It proposes a different way of thinking about the religious object — not simply as a devotional souvenir, but as an object capable of carrying meaning, provoking curiosity, starting a conversation, and becoming part of everyday life.

At the heart of VATICAN DESIGN is the conviction that contemporary culture can enter into a meaningful dialogue with spirituality without sacrificing artistic freedom, complexity, experimentation, or critical reflection. The project is particularly interested in creative practices engaging with questions of faith, identity, the body, symbolism, ritual, community, transformation, and the changing place of religious imagery in contemporary society.

VATICAN DESIGN invites artists and designers to enter this context not only by presenting finished works, but also by experimenting, exchanging ideas, and creating together. Individual exhibitions coexist with collaborative projects, workshops, screenings, discussions, and collective artistic statements. In this sense, the space functions as both a venue and a creative laboratory — one in which different disciplines, generations, cultures, and perspectives can meet.

The project was founded by multidisciplinary creator Dorota Mayer-Gawron together with her husband, a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and Theology, and a recipient of numerous awards and distinctions in the fields of design, UX/UI, and visual communication. Together, they bring complementary perspectives rooted in art, design, theology, and contemporary visual culture, creating a foundation for VATICAN DESIGN as a space where creative experimentation meets spiritual and cultural reflection. Dorota’s interdisciplinary background in Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, Theology, Journalism and Mass Communication, and Fashion Design has shaped an approach based on bringing together fields that are often treated as separate. VATICAN DESIGN is a continuation of her long-standing exploration of how contemporary artistic language can engage with religion and spirituality without becoming conventional or predictable.

Opened in 2025, VATICAN DESIGN also responds to a broader question: what might the visual culture surrounding Christianity look like today if contemporary artists and designers were actively invited to participate in shaping it?

Rather than rejecting tradition, the project approaches it as living material — something that can be revisited, interpreted, questioned, redesigned, and transformed. It creates room for new perspectives on religious aesthetics and encourages artists to challenge familiar conventions while remaining in dialogue with the symbolic and cultural heritage from which they emerge.

The coexistence of the cultural space upstairs and the concept store downstairs is fundamental to this idea. Exhibition and object, reflection and everyday life, spirituality and popular culture are not separated but placed in conversation with one another. A work of contemporary art, a film screening, a discussion, a workshop, or an unexpected religious object can all become different points of entry into the same conversation.