Domestic Rituals, Foreign Entities, Indecisive Hosts

Connie Vallese, Minjae Kim, Kasia Fudakowski, Grace Prince, Harley Weir, Rooms Studio


Domestic Rituals, Foreign Entities, Indecisive Hosts explored known typologies of design – transient residents of Numeroventi, an interdisciplinary residency and research-oriented platform that sparked creative exchange between artists, cultural institutions, and local communities in Florence, Italy. The exhibition’s title contained clues to the multitudes that were part of its act, with a touch of irreverence in a siloed world. The exhibition took place in a 17th-century building in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris. The baroque context of life was temporarily erased, allowing for personal projections and allusions to emerge in, on, and around each object.

Domestic Rituals, Foreign Entities, Indecisive Hosts proposed a cube, a table, a made bed, two lamps, three vessels, and a mobile – historic archetypes for living reimagined through regional narratives and universal reflections on materiality. Known architectures, myths, and natural phenomena formed the basis for hybrid morphologies that placed a collective emphasis on imperfection, abstraction, and patina. Sculpted into a bas-relief of radial blooms, a tiled cube Casita La Prima by Argentinian designer Conie Vallese presented a modular system for both rest and shelter, alluding to a portable sanctuary in which one could cultivate their own garden. Built around a skeletal steel framework, a two-tiered aluminum table by British designer Grace Prince embodied a precarious balance between structure and fluidity, as textured fiberglass discs perpetuated a sensation of fragility in negative space. Designer Minjae Kim presented Cattle Lamps, two fiberglass roofs folded over four steel legs, whose bovine shapes alluded to the Chinese character for ‘comfort.’



Considering the liminal dreamscape of a classical bedroom, the Georgian duo Rooms Studio exhibited a new linear 4-poster bed adorned with ornamental bull motifs, their masculine energy contested by the sacred feminine of a hand-quilted Atlas satin textile from the series Dowry Blankets (2018-2023). English photographer Harley Weir turned once again to the medium of clay, expressing her visceral approach to image-making in an amorphous series of melting vessels and statues that both integrated and echoed her photographic language. Extending the multidisciplinary nature of the exhibition, Berlin-based artist Kasia Fudakowski’s sculpture The Undecided Host/ess (2024) hung, gently turning in midair. Its blown glass ‘head’ swelled out of loops of steel, while an abstracted body of rings and fringe suspended below created an orbit of shadows and added a certain personified movement to an otherwise static salon.

Throughout the week, the exhibition featured listening sessions in collaboration with Matéo Garcia Audio, designer of the speaker installation located on the basement floor of the exhibition space, in dialogue with a tensegrity structure by Marc Leschelier.

Images by Justin Shapiro and Harley Weir


For details about the show, please contact us at art@numeroventi.it

For catalogues and information on individual works, email collect@numeroventi.it