"Flying City"

Biennale Architettura 2023 - 20.05 26.11 - 2023 

free entrance 10 am – 08pm

Starting from ancient travel stories, "flying city leather maps" is inspired by the myth of the flying carpet of the Indo-Persian tradition, projecting it into our time.

The "flying carpet" - this small ironic piece of land that can fly - is a privileged space that allows for a mystical experience: in fact, to describe what a decoration was, the ancient Persians used the words zemîn u zemân, i.e. the time and space like mystical union between finite and infinite.

Similarly, the ornamental motifs that stand out on Frank&Frank's leather maps are the geometric motifs of the cities as if to remind us that the places we live in are the territory of writing, restoring the sense of passing time, of the cultures and eras that follow one another and of stratification as richness.

Frank&Frank's maps recall evocative power, colour, shapes, promise of distance, the plot of cities, a geometric weave that tells stories, a mysterious warp, a circumscribed space where to free the imagination.

Frank&Frank create maps of cities around the world in "vegetable tanned leather" with natural tannins from plants and flowers.

Drawing cities is an artistic process of reduction from the image of the real city to an almost abstract structure: the result is a three-dimensional mosaic obtained with a manual intervention with natural anilines.

Maps as an artistic labyrinth where daily life and art meet, plunging us into the depths of time and space to explore the unknown horizons of our cities.

The creation of these works by Frank & Frank in organic material is the result of the curiosity and creativity of those who want to investigate the borders and territories in which our geography is oriented.

Frank&Frank are Marcella Molinini and Roberto De Gregorio, artists and designers, they live and work in Turin and have their workshop in the historic center of the city. They exhibited their project at: - Venice Art Biennale 2022 JW Marriott, Isola delle Rose Resort - ApArt Turin 2022 - Ca' Pesaro, Museum of Modern Art of Venice 2019 - Masieri Foundation, Venice Design Week 2019 - Milan Design Week 2019 - Scala Contarini, Venice Design Week 2018.

The exhibition is the result of the synergy between Venice Design Week and Baglioni Hotel Luna in the promotion of Design in Venice.