ROMOSAICO: Playful Sculpture at MAAM

2017

ROMOSAICO: Playful Sculpture at MAAM Outside of Rome, Italy, there is the MAAM – Museo dell’Altro e dell’Altrove. Museum of the Other and Elsewhere of Metropolis. It was reborn in 2012 as a contemporary street art museum, but has been the residence for displaced persons (“squatters”) for decades. The existence of the museum protects the inhabitants from eviction, revealing the protective power of art.

All artwork is collected through volunteer donation, and this donated sculpture (Rome + Mosaic) was a collaborative effort in a class on lighting and urban architecture in Rome taught by Elettra Bordonaro and made by Christina Schaller, Alessandrò Maestrini, and myself to create a playful object that would interest the children of those who live at MAAM in addition to children of museum visitors.

To encourage play between the two groups, on one half of the spinning wooden cubes there are black and white photos of buildings within the city center and the peripheral suburb communities of Rome, and on the other half are colors of the sky from sunrise, to midday, to sunset which may be changed through interacive play into a unique composition of city and color.