In the late '60s three Italian creatives Pietro Derossi, Giorgio Ceretti and Riccardo Rosso, designed the iconic Pratone lounge chair, an unconventional crazy seat reproducing giant blades of grass. In Italian the name of this design object means "big meadow".
Vast meadows, grass and the possibility of lounging around outdoor have been on our minds a lot now that we are all in lockdown, quarantine and self-isolation inside our houses because of Coronavirus. But there's another constant fixation in our minds - social distancing - that is maintaining physical distance to contain the virus. Yet, human beings are naturally social animals and staying away one from another to avoid spreading the virus is not easy.
Inspired by these two themes I came up with a new piece, a wearable sculpture entitled "pratino" (so "small meadow" in my case as this piece is infinitely smaller than the "Pratone").
The necklace represents a portable meadow and hints at social distancing as the different characters populating it are not sitting one next to the other, but they are far away, each on his own miniature grass world. Some of them are reading, others are resting or trying to chat with their fellow human beings, but all of them are keeping their distance.
I'm pleased about the way the piece looks: I made the structure and the half spheres from scratch using a 3D printing pen by AIO Robotics (note: this post is not an advert, but their Customer Service was great as they immediately replaced my first pen that had stopped working and was still under warranty) and emerald green AIO Robotics PLA thread. I tried to reproduce with the PLA thread the consistency of real yarn: it took some time and a few trials and errors, but in the end I got there. The illusion works as, from a distance, you may think this is a soft piece, but it is actually solid and hard.
I plan to be wearing it also after the Coronavirus emergency will be over (and I hope that will happen soon) to remind myself how hard social distancing can be and the consequences the loss of human interaction can have on our minds (loneliness, depression, lack of productivity...). For the time being, though, please keep on practicing social distancing and stay safe.
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