‘Thalamus’ [from Latin thalămus], is a term with multiple meanings. Since classical times, it has denoted the bridal chamber and in literature and poetry, by extension, the nuptial bed. In medieval plays it was the stage on which liturgical dramas were performed, while in anatomy it denotes the central part of the brain. It is our body’s information relay station: it processes sensory signals – including motor signals – before sending them to the cortex, which then interprets them; it regulates sleep, wakefulness, consciousness, learning and memory.
Within BASE, TALAMO is a performative sculpture – suspended and inhabitable – that will try to take on all these nuances. It will be an immense light bed, which becomes a room without delimiting a volume, without ever closing. A soft, fluid landscape, which will take shape thanks to its constant movement between floor and ceiling, shaped by the force of gravity and by interactions with the most disparate bodies – which will alter, indeed create, its topography.
Lemonot bring a restless stage that will give life, first with the performers arisandmartha (Aris Papadopoulos and Martha Pasakopoulou) and then by involving the audience, to fantastic choreographies and configurations – in which the boundary between matter and the human body is polished. All will be free to express and reinvent their gestures, within a small convivial architecture – which welcomes the physicality of each and places it in a dimension of renewed collective confrontation.
TALAMO is an ergonomic mirror, a cathartic device for everyone’s differences: a place in which to claim one’s own identity, but at the same time to dialogue, accept and embrace. In its continuous making and unmaking, TALAMO is therefore a living object – in turmoil – aware of how complicated it is to construct shared languages that nevertheless give space to uniqueness, without flattening it.
‘Talamus’, a soft, fluid platform where matter, thought and art meet, at BASE on the occasion of the Design Week.
Sabrina Morreale and Lorenzo Perri are architects, lecturers and founders of Lemonot – a duo combining spatial and relational practices, architecture and performing arts. They graduated together from the Architectural Association and now float between London and Italy.
Their projects reinvent the relationship between urban fabric, public space and human rituals through multiple media: pavilions, ephemeral installations, short films and performances. They are always ready to embrace new ways of being together and ways of inclusion. They work with an approach that is attentive to the specificities of places, but at the same time trans-territorial – aiming to awaken, trigger and celebrate the forms of spontaneous theatricality inherent in everyday life.
Sabrina and Lorenzo question how architecture can contribute to a peculiar reinterpretation of the city, defining new languages and 1:1 experiences, through short- and long-term occupational strategies. Dealing with multiple stakeholdersat the same time, they often intervene both as facilitators and planners, constructing spatial structures that support alternative narratives and unexpected interactions, resulting in unconventional place-making actions.
Academic activity is a key part of Lemonot. In 2018-19 they both taught as Adjunct Professors at INDA (International Program in Design and Architecture) in Bangkok and were Programme Heads ofthe AA Visiting School El Alto (Bolivia) .Lorenzo also taught at the University of Applied Arts Vienna in Architectural Studio 1 from 2020 to 2023, while Sabrina is currently Studio Master in the Foundation Course at the AA in London.
Since 2022, they have been running Architectural Design Studio 7 at the Royal College of Art in London together, exploring conviviality as a form of gentle resistance and spatial activism.
They collaborate with a number of cultural institutions – including Arquine, DPR Barcelona, LINA European Architecture Platform, S AM Basel, Architecture at the Edge (West Ireland) – and their projects have been exhibited and awarded internationally: among others, at the Young Talent Architecture Award 2016, ATT19 Gallery in Bangkok, RIBA, Vienna Design Week, Bangkok Design Week, Milan Design Week, Festival Mextropoli 2021 in Mexico City, FAR- Festival d’Architettura di Roma 2022 and CAFx Copenhagen Architecture Film Festival 2023 .
In addition, Lemonot is one of the 9 architecture studios selected for the Italian Pavilion at the 18th. International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2023, and Sabrina was appointed ‘2024 Enel Foundation Italian Fellow in Architectur.
TALAMO is a project supported by Culture Moves Europe funded by theEuropean Union and implemented by the Goethe Institut.
CULTURE MOVES EUROPE
Culture Moves Europe is theEU-funded programme that provides mobility grants for artists and cultural professionals in all 40 countries of Creative Europe. It covers the fields of architecture, cultural heritage, design and fashion, literature, music, performing and visual arts. It is implemented by the Goethe Institut, which qualifies, advises and networks creative professionals and supports the development of sustainable structures in the cultural and creative industries. With residency programmes, cooperations and co-productions it promotes the global networking of cultural operators. For those working in civil society, it offers free and protected spaces in which an open exchange of opinions can take place, without abandoning a democratic dialogue even in times of crisis.
NOCTIS SPA
Noctis is a partner of We Will Design 2024 and supports the realisation of TALAMO.
Noctis Spa is a company specialising in bedding located in the heart of Italy, in the Marche region. The company boasts a great tradition of craftsmanship that it has been enhancing for years, thanks to state-of-the-art technologies, continuing to devise innovative manufacturing systems and patented products. Its beds have always been the expression of a culture that feeds on the world, its colours, shapes and suggestions, and translates them into objects that are beautiful, comfortable, functional and accessible to all. The care and great passion for details and Made in Italy quality make Noctis products an excellent example of craftsmanship applied to industrial design, capable of harmoniously combining technological, aesthetic and emotional aspects.
