If artists write stories, the twists must be poetic. 

Studio Swine (Super Wide Interdisciplinary New Explorers) is a collective established in 2011 by Azusa Murakami (JP) and Alexander Groves (UK).

Their work straddles between the spheres of sculpture, installations, and cinema, blending poetry and research into immersive experiences. The studio adopts a unique approach to each work, drawing on the distinctive resources and vernacular aesthetic of its cultural, historic, and economic landscape. Professional training in art and architecture allows the studio to bridge rich and emotional narratives with rigorous spatial awareness.

From an individual’s life to the grand landscape of the environment, the studio swine seems to make art based on the real human world, while the works of their creation unveil traces of idealism that render this studio a seedbed for poetic stories. Therefore, every one of their works accounts for a story that embraces its unique narrative. At the center of each story lies an ever-changing theme——the harmony of our living world. No matter what approach the studio adopts to each story, they are all centered around one word——the “twist”.

The “twist“ is where the harmony comes to be possible, as the story of us is not in fact perfect. Since we all know that mistakes are inevitable. We are always in need of a second chance, with which we can come to an amendment, to make up what has been missing in the past. In this way, we are able to step out from the shadow of the past, and gazing into the future which is ornamented with sparkles of hope and rejoices. 

In the span of the evolution of human civilization, humans are struggling with keeping an equilibrium between the vulnerable ecosystem and the progressive human society. Many mistakes are made due to our negligence of environmental issues. This is where the studio swine endeavors to focus on——to uncover those mistakes that we are unaware of and to show the possibility of making difference through adding twists into the story of us. The story that the studio swine attempts to recount has to be changed through magical twists.  

As readers, we are looking forward to twists in the stories that come up in the most thrilling moment. The studio is a good storyteller who brings fascinating twists into the story. 

Twist 1: The twist of time and space——Infinity Blue

Flashes are moments that you capture the shadow of the world in vain. But the most amazing views are harbored in those ephemeral moments. The story welcomes a twist that freezes time and enlarges the miniature world. 

At almost 9 meters tall and weighing 20 tonnes, Blue (Infinity Blue) is an immersive installation that pays homage to the cyanobacteria, one of the world’s smallest living beings. Around 3 billion years ago, cyanobacteria first developed oxygenic photosynthesis. In doing so, they changed the nature of our planet. The sculpture is a monument to their vital creation, which continues to provide oxygen in every breath we take.

On the surface of the monument, Cornish clay and oxide glazes reflect local mining history. The textural pattern on the ceramic tiles is generated by a reaction-diffusion algorithm found in nature from zebras to coral. From the sculpture, 32 vortex cannons fire smoke rings whose scents tell a layered history of the earth’s atmosphere. Studio Swine collaborated with Paris perfume house Givaudan to develop fragrances inspired by the aromas of primordial worlds.

The camera takes time to slow down the progress of the making of the monument which resembles the birth of life. The monument is a twist of time and space that solute the finite earthly being into the infinite course of life-making, like the cyanobacteria producing oxygen inexhaustibly till now. The flow of images shapes the creature as the original of the living world, tracing back to the very beginning of the universe. From textiles to the scents, the footage of the video highlights every spectacular moment of the making process and brings us to mediating the bygones. This is where we come to be aware of the harmony with our environment——our lives are bound to each other and all of our achievements of the civilization pay a tribute to this intimacy.    

Twist 2: The twist of reality——New Spring

New Spring is an interactive installation and multi-sensory experience in a 1930’s disused Cinema in Milan. The installation presents ephemeral materials in a strange new context; delicate mist-filled ‘blossoms’ that disappear on contact with skin but can be held by visitors wearing special gloves. The studio twists the fact that ephemeral materials are easy to broken and renders transitory moments enduring. Producing these blossoms is the installation’s bold centerpiece, a tree-like sculpture that references the ornate chandeliers of Italian palazzos and the architectural features of Milanese columns and arches.

Though referring to chandeliers of Italian palazzos, the structure of New Spring is a resemblance to the human world that extends to various angles. Bubble-shaped blossoms are like fruits produced in the wake of the development of human civilization. They are vehicles of culture and history and symbolize the dream-like past and the fleeting present. With the twitch of reality, we are brought back to the source of life where the tree of Eden was growing into prosperity. The flip side of reality is the dream. Slowly approaching the illuminated blossoms, we step into the realm of paradise. Frozen is the time that those translucent blossoms become so light that they are dangling in the air like leaves floating in the wind. It ripples our hearts and blurs the boundary between dreams and reality. Stretching our arms we touch the untouchable; opening our eyes we perceive the unseeable. This interactive installation brought us into experiencing a rapport we are having with the environment.

Twist 3: The twist of history——Fordlandia

Fordlandia is inspired by a ghost town deep in the Amazon Rainforest built by the American Industrialist Henry Ford in the late 1920s to secure a supply of rubber for his automobile empire.

Fordlandia creates a fictional domestic space made entirely of Amazonian rubber and other materials from the rainforest. The installation explores the idea of synthesis between nature and industry, questioning Henry Ford’s attempt to tame nature in profit of his industrial gain.

The studio swine this time unseals the case of Henry Ford which has been buried in history. 

Ford wanted to bring an American ideal town to the tropics, he constructed rows of neat American style weatherboarded houses with a school, a hospital, railway, and a dance hall where they conducted weekly square dances. The workers were put on a strict diet and worked from the hours of 9-5. It became more than just a quest for rubber but it had become a social and cultural experiment.

After 6 years of failed crops and dispirited workers, the town was abandoned and the land was sold back to the Brazilian Government. What is left behind is a time capsule of 1930’s industrial Midwest town overgrown with tropical flora.

Along with those rubbery makings, we are all become witnesses of the crime and appalled by the brutal aspect of humanity. The brutality, however, is not just to those workers but to nature——our living space. Even though the same story would not reoccur, we shall still be vigilant that we might somehow fall into the same track.