MUNDO

Year: 2005-2015

Dimensions: 3 m diameter

Materials: White felt

In this installation, we are presented with a depleted world—warm yet disordered, where continents and countries begin falling towards the south, collapsing into one another and losing the established order. Our world represents a great ball of felt, yearning for cosiness at the last moment, yet it becomes increasingly evident that not all of us can find space within it. Just as the countries fall towards the south pole of the planet, their citizens move endlessly from one country to another, one climate to another, from one culture to another, one landscape to another. However, the warm light receives us openly; it is a world we can't help but feel curious about.
The round sculpture, measuring approximately 3 metres, suspended from the ceiling is the centre of attention: it compels us to confront an undeniable truth: our Earth, our home, is falling apart. The protective layers - the skin of the Earth - are peeling away, revealing how everything shifts and transforms before our eyes. Our world is falling before our eyes, and even though we see it happening, it does not seem to have any tragic effect on us.

Art curator Francesca Pasini says:
"The globe represents a vision that speaks of the dream to truly see this planet in its entirety. Elizabeth Aro has crafted it from natural white felt, with a diameter of about three metres, dominating the room as it hints at a slow, erratic rotation. The continents cluster in the southern hemisphere, as if unable to bear the weight of containing us any longer. The soft, warm felt evokes a home we all wish to inhabit, offering protection from the disasters that alter our natural ecosystem and from the myriad daily tragedies we face. It embodies perhaps the tender yet impossible dream of a sharing that knows no latitude, where we can collectively witness this symbolic descent occurring each day before our eyes. Yet, as Elizabeth Aro states, it “seems to have no tragic effect on us.” Aro's world, suspended in this space, also reflects that drawing we learn to make as children to exorcise the mystery of an universe too vast for our eyes—a world we all wish could coincide with the place we call home."