Kellenberger–White

Kellenberger–White

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‘Soak, Steam, Dream’

“Sweatbox heaven: welcome to the sauna and steam of your dreams” The Guardian

For the design of this exhibition, curated by Jane Withers and exploring the social, cultural, even corporeal aspects of bathing, Kellenberger–White took inspiration from American critic Leonard Koren’s manifesto for bathing – his ‘Undesigning the Bath’ (1996) is a tactile document that invokes the sensuous dimensions of bathing – and from the fluid curves of the Zaha Hadid-designed gallery that hosted the exhibition. We used organic materials and interventions in scale to transform the futuristic space into an animistic bathing grotto, drawing a grid studded with captions written freehand in charcoal on the undulating walls, building plinths from rough clay blocks, and making supports for displays out of a huge sawn tree trunk and by pouring hempcrete (a concrete substitute) into a large pit in the ground.

  • Year: 2016
  • Client: Roca London Gallery
  • Location: London
  • Category: Exhibition

Photography: Thomas Adank

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