WEDDING AT QANA

DALA NASSER, at VILLA MEDICI

VILLA MEDICI ROME, ITALY 2024

Installation DESIGN FOR DALA NASSER’S artwork in Siren Songs at Villa Medici

Set within the iconic staircase of the Villa Medici—a 16th-century palazzo perched above the Spanish Steps and home to the French Academy in Rome—we were invited to collaborate with artist Dala Nasser on the spatial design of her installation Wedding at Qana. The work was part of the Villa’s longstanding commitment to experimental contemporary art, presented within its historic interiors.

Drawing inspiration from the biblical miracle at Qana, where water was turned to wine, Nasser’s fabric paintings speak to themes of transformation, ritual, and conflict, rendered through material processes tied to the land.

The site we were assigned—the vaulted staircase—offered a unique architectural puzzle. Though the incline is barely perceptible at first, the elevation change from top to bottom exceeds four meters, a condition often obscured by the perspective of the narrow corridor. By adopting a one-point perspective approach—rooted in Renaissance spatial ideals—we amplified the latent drama of the space. The fabric works were installed along a continuous horizon line that guides the eye upward toward the vanishing point, revealing the hidden scale of the staircase.

Rather than treat the stair as a passage, we reimagined it as a viewing chamber—one where architecture, perspective, and painting converge to mystify and extend the space. The result was a quiet spatial revelation, collapsing history, theology, and the architectural invention of perspective into a single unfolding gesture.