Defense Exhibition
Client Vögele Cultural Center
Location Zurich, Switzerland
At times a thin veil provides better defense than the thickest of armor. The scenographic concept ties back to the idea of the selective membrane, offering simultaneously permeability and protection. The dynamic exhibition space is divided by semitransparent fabric planes and carpeted islands into seven themed areas, each circumscribing a defense mechanism, ranging from bunkers to camouflage and cooperation.
Defense strategies are diverse, often intuitive, and sometimes surprising. The exhibited objects emphasize the parallel use of defense mechanisms in distinctive fields. Strategies are co-opted from biology to military uses, military to psychology, psychology to economy, and so forth. The exhibition culminates in the “future room,” an abstractly and futuristically staged space where threats of the future are portrayed. Anchoring the center of the room is a gleaming white disc acting as an open forum where visitors can participate and record their thoughts.
The exhibition is conceived as a cultural, sensory