The Balcony

In ‘Avenir Avenir’ Gabriele Dini explores the nature of the space of “The Balcony” by proposing a site-specific intervention in the window in response to the surrounding urban landscape of The Hague. Fascinated by the editorial construction of “The Arcade Project”, where the Paris of the nineteenth century is fragmented through a collage of quotations, his investigation meets the structure of Benjamin’s book. Imagining compounds of natural and artificial materials that become the “passers-by” or flâneurs themselves. Perishable and exposed to processes of decay and transience, the objects are arranged in the shop window on the street like an archive of things.

Through processes of alterations, juxtapositions of fragments and appropriation of materials from different eras (from online 3D models of ancient artifacts, GPS systems, animal nests) the installation opens a dialogue between the exhibition space and its immediate surroundings, inviting passers-by to compose the narrative of the objects.