ANONIMA PLASTICA
2019-2022
The most mundane and ordinary artifacts are often the ones we buy and use with the least awareness, yet they play a central role in the production system: they are responsible for an enormous amount of materials used, long and uninterrupted manufacturing processes, and a planetary logistics network. The white plastic chair is one such object. It is in common use in different landscapes and different contexts, widespread in public spaces in the Mediterranean as well as in other hotspots of the world; it does not seem to have a founding link with specific cultural characters, one can consider it a ubiquitous object for this reason. This chair is an industrial product of rapid production - each specimen is made from about 2.5kg of plastic material and is printed in 90 seconds - and global distribution; it is one of the cheapest and most accessible seats, in any environment; it can be found on home balconies, in bars, in front of roadside stores, on playgrounds, on beaches; it is light, stackable, washable, and suitable for outdoor use.
The white chair is a symbol of all the design we have thought, invented, produced, and consumed, disposed of, recycled. Its ubiquity, however, does not prevent people from establishing a relationship of familiarity with it; on the contrary, it is perhaps its archetypal aesthetics that foster a total assimilation of the object within the context in which it is placed. The white chair has the ability to domesticate the space in which it is located: regardless of the nature and morphology of the place it manages to evoke the essence of conviviality, of encounter, as well as of belonging. It functions as an immediate and democratic instrument of appropriation of urban space, albeit for temporary situations: again, the extemporaneousness of the actions to which it is linked renders the object harmless in the eyes of the public, protecting its presence by not representing an infrastructure of permanent occupation. Its nature gives it the right to remain where it is, and in this way it can be a garrison of an invisible community, a sign of belonging.
ANONIMA PLASTICA narrates this anonymous design from a research conducted across Lebanon in 2019: the white chair represents a reference to decipher and interpret the country's urban transformations, to reread the relationship between inhabitants and landscape, between the speed of change and the rhythms of sociality, and finally the gap between major interventions (dictated by politics and economics) and the daily adaptation of individuals and communities. The white chair arrived in Lebanon around 1982, during the civil war, when a small local company imported an Italian mold to start producing it and attempt to start a business. Other pioneers have since followed suit. The chair has accompanied the country's dramatic phases over the past 40 years and can now be found from the remotest corners of the Bekaa Valley to the backyards of Beirut residences to the checkpoints on the border with Israel.
2019-2022
The most mundane and ordinary artifacts are often the ones we buy and use with the least awareness, yet they play a central role in the production system: they are responsible for an enormous amount of materials used, long and uninterrupted manufacturing processes, and a planetary logistics network. The white plastic chair is one such object. It is in common use in different landscapes and different contexts, widespread in public spaces in the Mediterranean as well as in other hotspots of the world; it does not seem to have a founding link with specific cultural characters, one can consider it a ubiquitous object for this reason. This chair is an industrial product of rapid production - each specimen is made from about 2.5kg of plastic material and is printed in 90 seconds - and global distribution; it is one of the cheapest and most accessible seats, in any environment; it can be found on home balconies, in bars, in front of roadside stores, on playgrounds, on beaches; it is light, stackable, washable, and suitable for outdoor use.
The white chair is a symbol of all the design we have thought, invented, produced, and consumed, disposed of, recycled. Its ubiquity, however, does not prevent people from establishing a relationship of familiarity with it; on the contrary, it is perhaps its archetypal aesthetics that foster a total assimilation of the object within the context in which it is placed. The white chair has the ability to domesticate the space in which it is located: regardless of the nature and morphology of the place it manages to evoke the essence of conviviality, of encounter, as well as of belonging. It functions as an immediate and democratic instrument of appropriation of urban space, albeit for temporary situations: again, the extemporaneousness of the actions to which it is linked renders the object harmless in the eyes of the public, protecting its presence by not representing an infrastructure of permanent occupation. Its nature gives it the right to remain where it is, and in this way it can be a garrison of an invisible community, a sign of belonging.
ANONIMA PLASTICA narrates this anonymous design from a research conducted across Lebanon in 2019: the white chair represents a reference to decipher and interpret the country's urban transformations, to reread the relationship between inhabitants and landscape, between the speed of change and the rhythms of sociality, and finally the gap between major interventions (dictated by politics and economics) and the daily adaptation of individuals and communities. The white chair arrived in Lebanon around 1982, during the civil war, when a small local company imported an Italian mold to start producing it and attempt to start a business. Other pioneers have since followed suit. The chair has accompanied the country's dramatic phases over the past 40 years and can now be found from the remotest corners of the Bekaa Valley to the backyards of Beirut residences to the checkpoints on the border with Israel.
This ordinary object becomes a point of reference within the liquid, miscellaneous landscape of Lebanon. Cities develop along the coastal freeways without interruption, forming one large agglomeration; approaching the mountains, on the other hand, the built-up areas are more scattered but still present as far as the eye can see. The continuity of the built environment is everywhere characterized by a juxtaposition of contemporary and historic architecture, ruins and empty buildings: the landscape is a daily clash between symbols of enrichment, expansion, and the baleful presence of buildings bombed during the wars. The man-made landscape in its structural conflict reflects Lebanon's society, which is characterized by a constant taking of sides by the multiple identities (cultural and religious) that claim their influence over the country's fortunes. Just as the debate among local communities is always kept on the edge of confrontation, so the landscape seems constantly on the verge of change: new construction sites rise rapidly amidst the ruins, historic neighborhoods make way for shopping malls, skyscrapers climb over buildings gutted by bombs, new bridges and roads cut through the hills, huge quarries erode the mountains. The white chair, in its seeming fragility, remains an anchor in the midst of change, a tool for standing still while watching the world turned upside down out there.
ANONIMA PLASTICA is a storytelling stemming from the photographic research led in 2019 by Giovanni Emilio Galanello g-e-galanello.eu
Exhibiting ANONIMA PLASTICA was an opportunity to tell the story of the research and to build a direct dialogue around the themes it deals with, with a view to continuing to develop the project through shared experience. In June 2022, ANONIMA PLASTICA was hosted by the gallery Superattico for a full week: the installation included a convivial outdoor, but confined, space that welcomed a talk with Matilde Cassani (architect, Milano) and Fondazione Giovanni Sacchi, a visual vjset with Rana Rmeily (graphic designer, Beirut/Stuttgart) and Leonard Streich (Something Fantastic, Berlin), and a concert by Youmna Saba (musician, Beirut/Paris).
