Rivane Neuenschwander Canteiros / Conversations and Constructions, 2006 C-print (poliptych of 16 photographs) Each: 40 x 60 cm / 15 3/4 x 23 1/2 inches Edition of 8 + 2APs 'Canteiros / Conversations and Constructions' 2006 is a grid installation of 16 photographic works. This series follows on from an earlier body of work by the artist 'Involuntary Sculptures' 2001, which document the casual almost unconscious habit of arranging of objects and food around the dinner table during a conversation or a meal at a restaurant. This new body of work, re-sites the focus of the shared meal in a domestic environment. A soft warm light infuses the space around a kitchen table, where the artist has arranged a series of architectural sculptures made from food and food packaging; a helter-skelter fairground ride made from onion rings, a jam sandwich composing a brick wall or a complex bridge crafted from frankfurters. These constructions take reference from a specific period in architectural and design history from the late 1950s-1960s – which was characterised by visionary architecture and design seeking to humanise or re-interpret the built environment following the political and social upheaval of the previous decades. In their ambitious and avant-garde designs, these visionaries proposed new methods of building soceity and new models for living. Here, Neuenschwander quotes the architectural designs of Oscar Niemeyer's Brasilia, the interpretations of architecture through the mosaic reliefs made by Athos Bulcao or the unrealized and theoretical architectural designs for 'Spatial City' presented by Yona Friedman in 1958. The poetic reconstruction of these iconic designs suggests that the idealism of this period in architectural history is encountered less in the everyday but in the memory and loss of this ambition.
