Abbracci in Volo
A suspended forest installation of 57 hand-folded leaves, made with Paolo Longo for an open call by the Comune di Fai della Paganella, Italy.
OVERVIEW
‘Abbracci in Volo’ is a site-specific installation made with Paolo Longo for an open call by the Comune di Fai della Paganella in the Italian Dolomites. Fifty-seven three-dimensional leaves, each folded by hand, hang from threads to encircle a single tree above a forest path. A great collective embrace suspended over the trail.
THE BRIEF
The call invited work that responds to the mountain woodland: its time, its seasons, its quiet. We work as a collective that joins architecture, visual art and environmental installation, with a sensory, site-led approach: ephemeral, organic forms made through folding, weaving and handwork, drawn from nature and the relationship between body and space.
THE CONCEPT
Each leaf shares a family resemblance but has its own tessellation and size, echoing the variety of the forest. Every leaf carries two surfaces: one warm (yellow, orange, red), one cool (green, blue, pink), paired so that yellow-green, red-blue and orange-pink shift in colour as the day's light changes. When the sun filters through the canopy the leaves turn semi-transparent and the colours overlap, generating endless new tones that dialogue with the wood and the cycle of the seasons: green in summer, autumn reds in fall, winter-sky blue in the cold.
THE OUTCOME
The leaves are free to turn in the wind, imitating the moment a real leaf releases from the branch, a continuous, silent dance above the path. The work asks people to stop, slow down, and rediscover the beauty of detail and of the relationships between things, exactly as the forest itself does.
