KENYA HARA, ANDREA BRANZI
Exist, orient, store, inebriate, measure, exchange, store, recite, write, think, navigate, love, share, rule, play, boil, adore, pierce, kill . . . The curators Andrea Branzi and Kenya Hara selected one hundred verbs, connected to one hundred objects, to let us travel across human history; words which relate to actions which relate to objects. Walking through the exhibition Neo-Prehistory at Triennale di Milano and reading this book means becoming lost in a space out of time, dark and multiplied by mirrors that make the exhibition apparently boundless. An infinite space where the hypnotic sequence of artifacts is emphasized by the primeval sound of a heartbeat slowing down and then accelerating rhythmically in a mesmeric cycle.
The framework is as simple as it is intriguing: words, which relate to actions, which relate to objects. Navigate is connected to a reed boat with a bamboo paddle from the 20th century, champagne flutes designed in 1992 are connected to celebrate.
Neo-Prehistory is the publication of the same-named exhibition at Triennale di Milano 2016. All the texts in the book are in English, Italian and Japanese.