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Polyurethane Dreams Residence

For the Earthrise 24 residency , together with the curator Salvatore Peluso, we have selected the German designer Jannis Zell , with his design proposal Polyurethane Dreams.

The designer reflects on the meaning of rest in a hyper-productive society like the one we live in and on the materiality of one of the elements that makes sleep possible – the mattress – made in most cases of polyurethane foam, a material that is difficult to recycle.

Polyurethane Dreams invites visitors to stop, to appreciate moments of rest and to reflect on our relationship with time, work and the daily rituals linked to sleep, invites you to change your perspective, encouraging us to ask: How can we introduce more breaks into our daily lives? What rest rituals can help us resist the constant urge to always be “on”?

THE'residency outcome was submitted on October 30, 2024 at 7:00 p.m. in conjunction with the Turin Art Week.

The work Polyurethane Dreams, the outcome of the residency program, enriches and complete the exhibition Ecology is social, in practice, curated by Salvatore Peluso, which presents 10 projects that interpret design as a lever for change towards a more equitable and ecological society, open until 16 December 2024.

Are you curious to discover Jannis' design journey? We told it on Substack, visit profile!

Jannis Zell
Through his projects, Jannis Zell (1992, Stuttgart), constructs a visual imaginary on matter and time, on nature and culture. The Berlin-based designer and artist works with different media, such as objects, paintings, drawings and sculptures. Starting from a collection of human and non-human artefacts and biofacts, he builds an expanding Wunderkammer that translates into an association of images and parallel narratives. Taking up ideas of archaeology and the lost past, Jannis Zell's pieces propose themselves as a speculation around the mysticism linked to certain objects.

Technical Sponsor: Re Mat
This work was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.