The Alchemic Laboratory

The Alchemic laboratory is an experiential place that invites the visitor to question the concept of matter. The laboratory is yellow: yellow like that of nature – which serves to attract pollination –, yellow like the lights that protect the micro-electronics sensors from direct radiation and finally citrinas – yellow lemon – as one of the four colors of the alchemical transmutation.

 

We tend to think at the transformation of matter as a linear and predictable scientific process, but what happens if the boundaries between natural/artificial, alive/inert, extractive/grown, blur? A series of energy, environmental, health and social crises has given us a bitter lesson: nature can be unavailable and not respond to our desires. So, if we lose the control of the process, if we believe in a new conscious material culture, if the material asserts its design reasons, this path opens to imagination, to the unexpected, to the creative vitality.

CREDITS

Curated by: Ingrid Paoletti

Project by: Zaven Outfitting

In collaboration with:

Anna Barbara,Liberato Ferrara, Antonio Grande, Sara Mantero, Maria Anischenko, Yagmur Bektas, Beatrice Belgio, Marta D’Alessandro, Olga Beatrice Carcassi, Giorgio Castellano, Danilo Casto, Valeria Marsaglia, Saverio Spadafora (Politecnico di Milano);  Stefano Gomarasca (Università Statale di Milano);Paolo Bombelli (Cambridge University); Federico Leoni (Università di Verona); Claudia Mareis, Bastian Beyer, Emile De Visscher, Moritz Liedtke, Natalija Miodragović, Iva Rešetar, Daniel Suárez, Regine Hengge (Cluster of Excellence Matters of Activity. Image Space Material, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Massimo Gatelli (Milleforma).

 

We thank the Laboratorio Maba.Saperlab, Sistema Laboratori ABC of the Politecnico di Milano and the Cluster of Excellence “Matters of Activity. Image Space Material ” funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2025 – 390648296