lanzavecchia + wai: space quilt one day in the life of V.M. on earth

‘weave detail’ of ‘one day in the life of V.M. on earth’ by lanzavecchia + wai photo © wallace wong

for the ‘another terra. home away from home’ IN residence exhibition presented during milan design week 2012, curators barbara brondi and marco rainò proposed the question: ‘if, by choice or by necessity, we had to envision life on some other planet other than earth, what kind of ‘minimal hand luggage’ would we take with us on our journey to other galaxies or a different celestial body with acceptable living conditions for mankind?‘.

italian-singaporean design duo lanzavecchia + wai developed ‘one day in the life of V.M. on earth’, a space quilt in response to this query. as they state: ‘it was not uncommon, in early american culture, for quilts to reflect a mosaic of a woman’s life, often including swatches of material from memorable events…’

basing their design on the life of ‘V.M.’, lanzavecchia + wai’s blanket is an everyday object, marked by events and actions which have occurred in a routine day of her life. the 220 x 150 cm quilt is woven from golden Mylar® strips which have been repeatedly hand-stamped, in chronological order of the individual names of the objects that were encountered, touched or used. in this form, a seemingly mundane fragment of life is sealed and given permanence. these words re-materialize the possessions, their related everyday gestures and rituals of a day on earth that it is impossible to repeat ever again.

the projects shown as part of the ‘another terra. home away from home’ IN residence exhibition address the way in which human beings are related to objects around them, which they use on a daily basis, probing into a different environmental context from that of our own everyday experience.

hand weaving the quilt photo © wallace wong