MACHAS

An Ephemeral Forest

Of all the places in a building to hang out, a connecting corridor is the least likely to be on anyone’s favorite list. Unless you give knife and enough paper to Ufocinque and, voilà, the tunnel between two adjoining halls is transformed into an hand cut forest of paper trees.

After the Salone del Mobile, Machas’ Ufocinque has been called back to Milan to lend his art to The White, a staple trade show for buyers all over the world to discover new talents in the fashion industry. We met up with Ufocinque at the show and as we made our way through the trees, suddenly something clicked: the light fragmented by the branches created something so incredibly pleasant and, although the prospective of the hall ahead as seen through installation was aesthetically inviting, we couldn’t make it to the other side - we wanted to enjoy it a bit more.

As the bandits of Sherwood Forest, we stood by the trees and, between the groups of Japanese buyers snapping pictures of themselves with the installation, we asked Ufocinque to walk us through the process of creating this Ephemeral Forest.
“I fixed a strings or thin rope at the very top of the tunnel and I hung the layers of papers that I prepared before with the outer shape already cut and the drawing the inner design I had in mind. I then hand cut with inner shapes with a disposable knife - I felt like I was a gardener pruning the trees! I decided to not tie to the ground the bottom end of each layer as it would be more resistant to any eventual accidental brush with the guests walking by.”

“As I was cutting the paper” Ufocinque continued, “many people were surprised to see that it was all done by hand. I guess that most assume all my pieces are machine made but you can tell the difference: if I’d used cnc cutting the paper would be slightly burn and, if I’d use another technique you wouldn’t have such a smooth cut but you’d see a sort of “pixellated” cut. This craftsmanship approach to art is a key element of all my art.”

From the moment Ufocinque got the rolls paper to the final cut, the whole installation took two days be made.