{"id":90979,"date":"2025-09-03T18:39:25","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T18:39:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ccmagazine.es\/?p=90979"},"modified":"2025-09-03T18:39:25","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T18:39:25","slug":"matria-studio-peniques-inflatable-sanctuary-in-melbourne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ccmagazine.es\/en\/matria-studio-peniques-inflatable-sanctuary-in-melbourne\/","title":{"rendered":"MATRIA: Studio Penique\u2019s inflatable sanctuary in Melbourne"},"content":{"rendered":"

The piece is part of the Now or Never<\/em><\/a> festival programme \u2014 a multidisciplinary event that has turned Melbourne into a playground for immersive art, music, technology and architecture.<\/p>\n

In this context, MATRIA<\/em> is presented as a total experience: an inflatable volume that fully envelops the interior of one of Australia\u2019s most iconic heritage buildings, transforming its 19th-century grandeur into a soft, warm and radically contemporary refuge.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Studio Penique<\/em>\u2019s signature is unmistakable. Since its beginnings, the collective has worked with large-scale, monochromatic inflatable installations that occupy and reimagine existing architectural spaces. Their method involves introducing a vast plastic membrane that adapts to the environment, covering every surface and inviting a new reading of volume, scale and light.<\/p>\n

In the case of MATRIA<\/em>, the proposal reaches an even deeper symbolic dimension: the soft pink hue, plastic texture and enveloping form create an almost womb-like atmosphere, in which the viewer is not merely an observer, but quite literally held within.<\/p>\n

The title is no accident. MATRIA<\/em> evokes a sense of belonging and origin that breaks away from the patriarchal notion of the “patria” or “fatherland”. Here, architecture becomes a maternal entity \u2014 an emotional container, a safe space. It\u2019s a gesture that is both sensitive and political, placing the work at the intersection of installation art, urban reflection and sensory experience. Penique<\/em> doesn\u2019t simply create environments; it crafts spaces of emotional transit.<\/p>\n

The choice of the Royal Exhibition Building<\/em> as the setting reinforces the tension between the historic and the ephemeral. A UNESCO World Heritage Site<\/em> built in 1880, the building stands as a symbol of architectural grandeur from the industrial era. Wrapping it entirely in a pink inflatable skin becomes an almost subversive act: a space traditionally loaded with visual hierarchy and symbolic power is made accessible, intimate \u2014 even tender. Monumentality becomes human.<\/p>\n

Inside, everything changes. Natural light, filtered through the plastic membrane, creates a warm, almost dreamlike glow. Columns, soaring ceilings and ornate mouldings are softened into fluid, almost liquid forms. The building\u2019s usual echo dissolves, replaced by a carefully designed soundscape tailored specifically for the installation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Composer David Paterson<\/em> has created an immersive score designed to resonate with the internal rhythm of the space and heighten the sensory experience of those who move through it. Gentle, breath-like sounds intertwine with the inflatable architecture, as though the space itself were emitting a vital pulse. Meanwhile, lighting by visual artist Paul Lim<\/em> acts as an emotional layer: it washes the pink membrane with soft transitions and subtle contrasts, guiding the visitor without dictating a path. Together, sound and light form a perceptual choreography, turning each step into an intimate and meditative experience.<\/p>\n

But MATRIA<\/em> is not merely a habitable sculpture. Throughout its presence in Melbourne, the space has been activated by meditation sessions, performances and live concerts, creating a living environment in constant flux. Studio Penique<\/em> conceives its works as platforms for collectivity \u2014 as spaces where architecture becomes a shared body. In this edition, artists such as rROXYMORE<\/em>, Shapednoise<\/em>, and Amber McCartney<\/em> have delivered performances that dialogue with the volume, the sound, and the pink skin that envelops it all.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the work\u2019s greatest strengths lies in its ability to question our relationship with materials.\u201d<\/h2>\n

One of the work\u2019s greatest strengths lies in its ability to question our relationship with materials. The inflatable structure is made from 100% recycled plastic \u2014 a decision that not only responds to sustainability concerns but also introduces a new poetics of waste. The disposable becomes art. The fragile becomes structure. In a world saturated with hollow sustainability narratives, Studio Penique<\/em> offers a tangible practice that literally transforms discarded materials into aesthetic experience.<\/p>\n

Despite its monumentality, MATRIA<\/em> does not impose \u2014 it embraces. Its presence is gentle yet powerful, like a slow breath. Visitors move with care, their steps cushioned by the padded floor, and time seems to stretch. What might normally be an architectural visit here becomes an act of full presence \u2014 of pause, of surrender. As if the space itself were asking to be inhabited at a different pace.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Studio Penique<\/em>\u2019s trajectory has been shaped by this very philosophy. Since their beginnings in Barcelona, the collective has intervened in libraries, auditoriums, chapels and industrial spaces \u2014 always with a practice that is both playful and critical. Works such as Niu<\/em> (L\u2019Auditori<\/em>, Barcelona) and Buit<\/em> (Tecla Sala Art Centre<\/em>, L\u2019Hospitalet) already pointed towards their unique way of crafting architecture using air, colour and time. But MATRIA<\/em> is undoubtedly their most ambitious project to date \u2014 not only in terms of scale, but also in the symbolic weight it carries.<\/p>\n

As one progresses through MATRIA<\/em>, it becomes clear that this installation is not meant to be understood through the traditional languages of art or architecture. There is no single reading, no fixed route. Everything invites drift \u2014 a bodily, sensorial exploration. That freedom is part of the work\u2019s core: here, architecture ceases to be structure and becomes emotional state. The visitor doesn\u2019t simply observe \u2014 they allow themselves to be affected.<\/p>\n

\u201cMATRIA doesn\u2019t impose a narrative; it opens a space where each visitor can build their own.\u201d<\/h2>\n

In that sense, MATRIA<\/em> aligns with a growing movement in contemporary art that questions the hierarchical relationship between artwork and viewer. Instead of the expository, the immersive. Instead of the contemplative, the participatory. Rather than demanding attention, MATRIA<\/em> offers care. It does not dictate a message but creates the conditions for each visitor to shape their own experience. The result is an open encounter, where subjectivity is not only welcome but becomes the true engine of meaning. In that meeting of body, space and emotion, art ceases to be an object and becomes an event.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This type of practice \u2014 straddling installation, ephemeral architecture and performance \u2014 is gaining ground at festivals and biennials worldwide, and is reshaping how we understand public space. The inflatable is no longer merely a technical or aesthetic device; it is a tool for openness, a way to hack space through softness. Studio Penique<\/em> has understood this potential and expanded it to a monumental scale, without losing the poetic dimension at its core.<\/p>\n

The choice of the word MATRIA<\/em> reinforces this way of thinking. At a time when many cities are undergoing gentrification, bodily regulation and the erosion of shared space, the concept of “matria” emerges as a symbolic counterpoint to the patriarchal, the rigid and the normative. MATRIA<\/em> doesn\u2019t defend a fixed identity \u2014 it proposes a space open to difference, listening, and community. It is also a critique of traditional exhibition models, often elitist or inaccessible, which here dissolve into something fully sensorial.<\/p>\n

Speaking to CC\/magazine<\/em> from Melbourne, the members of Studio Penique<\/em> summarise their philosophy as follows:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work with air as a structure, but also as a metaphor. Inflatable forms allow us to redefine the limits of architecture \u2014 to make it more porous, more human. We want our installations not just to occupy a space, but to transform it emotionally.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

That gesture \u2014 light, yet deeply political \u2014 resonates with other contemporary practices that use architecture not as a form of control, but as an act of care. MATRIA<\/em> is a refuge, but also an open question: what kind of spaces do we want to inhabit? How can art soften the harshness of the world? How can we return to experiencing architecture through the senses?<\/p>\n

The answer, perhaps, lies not in reason, but in experience. It is enough to walk through MATRIA<\/em>, to feel how the light filters through the pink membrane, how the sound resonates with the body\u2019s own rhythm, how the air seems to breathe alongside us. In that moment, history becomes present, and monumentality turns intimate.<\/p>\n

The installation was open for four days, from August 21 to 24, and left a lasting impression on those who experienced it. Not only because of its scale or beauty, but because of its rare ability to offer a moment of pause amidst the noise \u2014 to return to architectural space its most essential dimension: being a place to stay.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In times of constant acceleration, MATRIA<\/em> acted as a parenthesis, an invitation to inhabit the present with a different quality of attention. Its gentle, contained atmosphere not only transformed the relationship with the surroundings, but also awakened something deeper: the desire to reconnect with the sensitive, the intimate, the shared.<\/p>\n

(*)<\/strong> Photographs courtesy of Articulate Advisory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The piece is part of the Now or Never festival programme \u2014 a multidisciplinary event that has turned Melbourne into a playground for immersive art, music, technology and architecture. In this context, MATRIA is presented as a total experience: an inflatable volume that fully envelops the interior of one of Australia\u2019s most iconic heritage buildings, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":90949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5902,5901,5900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibitions","category-artists","category-art-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMATRIA: Studio Penique\u2019s inflatable sanctuary in Melbourne<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Studio Penique transforms a historic building in Melbourne with MATRIA, an inflatable installation that turns architecture into emotion.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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