The Ring of Life – “Let’s Talk About the Weather” Installation

Conceived as a boxing ring with a central punching bag and onlooking cushions, the installation welcomes anyone to enter “the ring of life” and confront our most urgent issues, be it the environment, catastrophes, heartbreaks, and calamities. To personalize the experience, participants will receive strips of ribbon to write down urgent topics of their choice, both personal and universal. The only question to answer: “What anguish drives your anger?”

The installation is not a metaphor of heavy resignation however, but a triumphant call to action à la Bokja: . Voice the anger, let’s do something about it. Use your power! Bokja will tie every ribbon to its Bokja-dized punching bag, loading it with visitors’ heaviest emotions and creating one more paragraph in the human story, written from lines of our present pain.

CREATIVE CONCEPT

Inspired in part by the brand’s original “Tree of Life” installation in Milan, an invitation to answer “What makes you happy?” and hang it from the tree like old wishing traditions, Bokja’s “Let’s Talk About the Weather” installation travels further on the emotional spectrum. The installation is a mirror held to our faces in the form of embroideries of the “Three Monkeys” – universal symbols of “see no evil, hear no evil, do no evil.” Social critics, they are reminders of our urgent reality: failing to open our eyes and ears to injustices done to other humans, species, and the earth at large, everywhere.

TECHNICAL EXECUTION

In line with the brand’s sustainability commitment, the 6×6 m installation is constructed from recycled shader canvases and silk remnants reborn from the atelier floor. The punching bag is made of assembled remnant silks and embroideries while the boxing floor is covered in waterproof shader, a reclaimed canvas fabric used to shelter goods like fruits and vegetables during long truck journeys. Akin to human skin, shader functions as a protection, but also as a record of passing time and weathered journeys. Eighteen quilted cushions, crafted from the same assemblage of fabrics and embroideries, invite guests to engage with the topics – and their own rage – more deeply. The entire installation was produced in Bokja’s Basta atelier in Beirut.