Lawn Cars, 2021
Benedetto Bufalino (Lyon, France)
In a utopic new world where the automobile has been rendered obsolete, three parked cars have been turned upside down, filled with earth, and covered with an immaculate lawn – perfect for an afternoon of sunbathing or a picnic. Street parking has been taken over to yield a place where people live and play together while greening public space.
Benedetto Bufalino’s work consistently subverts our perceptions by treating the commonplace details of everyday life as occasions for new readings of reality and reconfigurations of the urban environment. By literally turning cars upside down and repurposing them, he desacralizes an object that has for too long monopolized urban space and transformed city living. Bufalino has chosen our consumer society’s most iconic product for an act of sustainable reuse and radical recycling – an act with wide resonance that is at once a critique of our obsession with productivity, a reminder of impending ecological catastrophe, and a call to take back public space.
Benedetto Bufalino lives and works in Lyon, France. Throughout a career focused on creating ephemeral installations in public spaces, he has taken part in many events and festivals including Un Été au Havre, Nuit Blanche, and Voyage, all in Nantes, France; Landscape Festival Praha, in Prague; and Concéntrico, an International Architecture and Design Festival in Logroño, Spain. His work has been exhibited at prestigious institutions such as Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Musée d’art contemporain (Lyon), and the National Museum of Singapore.
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