A tile and its thousand possibilities
A Tile and Its Thousand Possibilities marked Kejun Li’s first public presentation at Milan Design Week 2023, following his professional transition from engineering to art and design. Its reception directly led to Li’s first commercial collaboration with the Italian ceramic specialist De Marchi Verona, establishing a bridge between experimental design and industrial production.
The project explores how a single tile can generate countless visual outcomes through rule-based combination. Inspired by tile-based games such as Tantrix, a hexagonal tile was developed with a fixed geometry and internal logic. While each tile retains its own “energy,” larger compositions emerge through rotation, repetition and adjacency, allowing the original unit to dissolve into fluid, unpredictable patterns. The work challenges the conventional notion of tiles as static elements, instead proposing them as generative systems.
Central to the project is the idea of Design + Play. Beyond function and decoration, the tiles invite active participation: viewers are encouraged to touch, assemble and explore different configurations themselves. The project positions play not as an accessory, but as an essential design value—one that transforms ordinary materials into open-ended experiences.
