The Day the Sand Caught Fire: Ugo Schiavi
En cours exhibition
Communiqué de presse
T H E P I L L ® is pleased to present The Day The Sand Caught Fire, Ugo Schiavi’s second solo exhibition in Istanbul between the dates 26 June — 26 July 2025 in parallel to his participation in Under Pressure Above Water curated by Nilufer Sasmazer at ARTER Museum of Contemporary Art and his solo show at Museum MAMAC Nice.
At the core of the exhibition is a monumental, eponymously titled installation — an expansive, fossil-like structure forged from 3D scans collected during the artist’s field research in AlUla and Riyadh (Saudi Arabia). Alongside this imposing centerpiece, Schiavi debuts a new series of sculptural glass works, each shaped by fire and breath. Together, the works conjure a scorched landscape of myth and ruin—where desert sands, meteorite impacts, and lost cities collapse into a single speculative vision.
The Day The Sand Caught Fire operates at the intersection of geological time and political urgency. Schiavi’s fossilized installation evokes ancient altars and modern drilling machines, the silhouette of a forgotten civilization, and the residue of present-day extraction. The burning sand becomes both literal and metaphorical, pointing to a planet increasingly engulfed by wildfires, social unrest, and climate collapse. Echoing the themes of his Uprising series, Schiavi channels the fervor of mass protests and ecological trauma into a sculptural language of layered histories and unstable futures.
A dense accumulation of layers emerges in the form of time-traveling hybrids in a state of permanent metamorphosis. Employing photogrammetry not merely as a production tool but as a conceptual device, Schiavi treats technology as a fossilizing agent. Just as minerals sneak into organic matter to form fossils, here digital scans infiltrate fragments of both ancient grandeur and post-industrial detritus. In this collision of past and present, organic and synthetic, the installation becomes a stratified archive of memory, erosion, and yearning. Complementing the central work is a series of delicate yet visceral glass sculptures, each echoing the alchemical transformation of desert sand into glass. Their surfaces — at once transparent and opaque — mimic the intricate topographies of wind-sculpted desert canyons. These molten landscapes, shaped by fire and breath, serve as intimate counterpoints to the monumental fossil, capturing moments of fragility, transformation, and suspended time.
At the core of the exhibition is a monumental, eponymously titled installation — an expansive, fossil-like structure forged from 3D scans collected during the artist’s field research in AlUla and Riyadh (Saudi Arabia). Alongside this imposing centerpiece, Schiavi debuts a new series of sculptural glass works, each shaped by fire and breath. Together, the works conjure a scorched landscape of myth and ruin—where desert sands, meteorite impacts, and lost cities collapse into a single speculative vision.
The Day The Sand Caught Fire operates at the intersection of geological time and political urgency. Schiavi’s fossilized installation evokes ancient altars and modern drilling machines, the silhouette of a forgotten civilization, and the residue of present-day extraction. The burning sand becomes both literal and metaphorical, pointing to a planet increasingly engulfed by wildfires, social unrest, and climate collapse. Echoing the themes of his Uprising series, Schiavi channels the fervor of mass protests and ecological trauma into a sculptural language of layered histories and unstable futures.
A dense accumulation of layers emerges in the form of time-traveling hybrids in a state of permanent metamorphosis. Employing photogrammetry not merely as a production tool but as a conceptual device, Schiavi treats technology as a fossilizing agent. Just as minerals sneak into organic matter to form fossils, here digital scans infiltrate fragments of both ancient grandeur and post-industrial detritus. In this collision of past and present, organic and synthetic, the installation becomes a stratified archive of memory, erosion, and yearning. Complementing the central work is a series of delicate yet visceral glass sculptures, each echoing the alchemical transformation of desert sand into glass. Their surfaces — at once transparent and opaque — mimic the intricate topographies of wind-sculpted desert canyons. These molten landscapes, shaped by fire and breath, serve as intimate counterpoints to the monumental fossil, capturing moments of fragility, transformation, and suspended time.
Vues de l'exposition
