Wood Waves
installation for Salvioni + Emmemobili
2019
“WOOD WAVES: percorso di un pensiero” A site-specific installation by Elena Salmistraro for Salvioni Milano Durini with Emmemobili® From October 16th 2019 the window of Salvioni Milano Durini turns into Wood Waves: percorso di un pensiero”, a new project specially made for this space created by the many-sided designer and artist Elena Salmistraro. Two years have passed since the opening of the Salvioni Design Solutions showroom in Milan, a major reality of the retail sector, which represents more than 100 design brands. Since its inauguration, this period six-story building in the heart of the historic center has acquired a strong character and the owners decided to dedicate it every year to a special project, which underlines the vocation of being a place of special and quality initiatives, of cultural fruition, from which drawing inspiration and incentives. Salvioni Design Solutions decided to select different voices from the world of the design, architecture and from the most representative companies in order to propose them as a “show” inside its spaces. The idea is to present the best Made-in-Italy design, iconic pieces, that many know or new up-and-coming brands in line with Salvioni’s offer, telling them through original projects. After 2018, that saw the showing of an expositive and cultural project with Zanotta together with Carlo Stanga, this year it’s Elena Salmistraro the author of a site-specific installation, which is a story, a tale, a journey through dream and imagination, a vision. The young designer tells us about her Orbis collection, designed for the historic brand Emmemobili® and she does it with a unique, radical and intense installation. “Orbis collection tells about circles and spheres, about perfect geometric shapes, always related to philosophical concepts linked to nature and sacred, but above all, it is about wood and metal, grains, finishes, and colors. These are the elements, the actors and these want to be the main characters of the installation. The major purpose of this latter is not to celebrate a usual domestic interior, but it tries to go further, to stage a different way of looking at the world, a different way to design the wood. The result is a monochromatic space, emphasized by the grains, that want to be a slightly concealed reference to the wooden “wrinkles”, sinuous waves, that recall the soft movement of the sea, Wood Waves indeed. Big cuts and portals with a metaphysical mark, made of brass-colored wooden panels, that intentionally recall the metal elements of the Emmemobili® collection, integrate themselves strongly inside the composition, producing slashes of light, which break the monotony gaining the attention of the spectator. On the wall, the wood comes to life as hybrid objects, which wisely mixing light and three-dimensionality, create totemic elements, full of futuristic and a little bit retro mentions. Also on the ceiling, light tubes with sinuous lines produce chromatic forays, that modify the space perception, in this case a living, a lounge in the most classical sense. With a unique and unequivocal language, where imagination and fancy replace reality, Elena tries to deepen the close and indivisible relation between matter, in this case, wood and metal, and light. The experiment creates a strange environment, a fantastic place between past and future, just as Orbis, the collection, that wants to tell”.