Ibeji is an installation designed to investigate issues of material and formal expression, challenging normative ideas about structural behavior. The large ring-like volume is positioned in delicate balance along the central axis of a narrow gallery space, creating moments of tension around and within the structure’s monolithic shape. It engages visitors allowing them to look through its hollowed center, occupy it, walk around it, and even sit on it.
The liveliness of the project’s figure masks the appearance of stability from its massive form. Ibeji, a word derived from African Yoruba mythology, refers to a pair of magical twins that bring about joy and happiness, with one soul shared between two bodies. It references the dual condition of the object, in which one half cannot exist, or function, without the other since the equilibrium of the volume is obtained by the careful balance of the resultant weight load and forces of the two halves.
Type: Installation
Location: dieFirma Gallery. New York, NY
Year: 2019
Team: Julián Palacio in collaboration with Students from The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, The Cooper Union
Fabrication: North American Sculpture Center & Precision Stone
Photos & Video: ImagenSubliminal (Miguel de Guzman & Rocio Romero)
The liveliness of the project’s figure masks the appearance of stability from its massive form. Ibeji, a word derived from African Yoruba mythology, refers to a pair of magical twins that bring about joy and happiness, with one soul shared between two bodies. It references the dual condition of the object, in which one half cannot exist, or function, without the other since the equilibrium of the volume is obtained by the careful balance of the resultant weight load and forces of the two halves.
Type: Installation
Location: dieFirma Gallery. New York, NY
Year: 2019
Team: Julián Palacio in collaboration with Students from The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, The Cooper Union
Fabrication: North American Sculpture Center & Precision Stone
Photos & Video: ImagenSubliminal (Miguel de Guzman & Rocio Romero)