OPEN’s Art Installation The Eternal & the Ephemeral Exhibited in Italy, 2017-09-27

OPEN’s installation titled “The Eternal & the Ephemeral” evoked the interest and participation of a great number of visitors at Marmomac 2017, held from September 27th to 30th in Verona Italy. The piece was created in response to the theme of the exhibition, “Soul of City,” and was curated by celebrated Italian architectural scholar Luca Molinari. “Soul of City” invited designers, including OPEN, from seven different countries to collaborate with some of Italy’s finest stone manufacturers and interpret their own understanding of the given theme using a single building material, stone. In OPEN’s design, a giant block of limestone measuring 1.5m x 1.5m x 1.5m was sliced into 8000 small cubes of 7.5cm x 7.5cm x 7.5cm each. Every visitor to the exhibition was invited to take away a small cube, which was engraved with the words “Soul of City”, as well as a unique serial number. As the micro cubes were taken away, the geometric form of the installation continued to change, from the initial large cube to an ever changing silhouette, much like a morphing city skyline. Generosity and sharing, eternity and ephemerality-- the warmth and openness of this installation is a perfect analogy for OPEN’s ideal vision of the city.