Parasite 2.0 turns a Milanese bookstore into a desert

The Milan-based designers Parasite 2.0 are presenting Books from the Wilderness, an installation they created to transform the interior of the bookstore Libreria 121+ in Milan into a work of art. The group's three architects, who work at a crossroads between design, visual arts and social sciences, have built an immersive setting for the shop's space and selected an original collection of books to display in it, visitable until 2 February. The content and the container tell a unique story, the first instalment of a series organised by the publisher Corraini Edizioni. The volumes cover a wide range of tastes, for instance the anarchist Colin Ward, the artist Bruno Munari, the Japanese manga Fist of the North Star and the Bible. Combined with shapes made of sponge and yellow lights, the 60 books printed by different publishing houses tell the tale of a long biblical voyage through the desert, a story of decadence and rebirth.

"The project is an interpretation of the desert as a place of purification. It's a habitat where the bequests of modernity become free elements devoid of their reciprocal relations. These loose elements allow us to imagine new formulations and realities." One symbol of modernity is given by a scale reproduction of Villa Savoye, a house built by Le Corbusier outside Paris in 1929. The villa is a frequent source of inspiration to Parasite 2.0, which uses it in iconoclastic ways. Here, it is built from blocks of sponge meant to be taken apart and put back together in different ways by the public, according to circumstances or inclination. A music event on 31 January 2018 will see the bookstore turned into a small amphitheatre.