Bliss
A site-specific sculpture installation designed by Helidon Xhixha is a concentric arrangement of stainless steel columns and benches that are designed to encourage both self-reflection and solidarity, referencing utopian city planning.
Representing his home country of Albania, Helidon Xhixha's installation at Somerset House, wins the 2016 London Design Biennale Public Medal.
Europe is in the midst of its largest migration crisis since World War 2, people fleeing War torn countries, suffering from poverty and famine, flood daily into what is so called ‘Festung Europa’. Europe’s border policies are such that allow for this influx of human population, the continent offers a humanitarian place for refuge and safety, whilst at the same time mounting pressure on the pre-existent inhabitants. Utopian thought comes as a direct response to the social dilemmas of the time, and as a reaction to a clear lack of alternative proposals. In its current situation, Europe is in need of utopian political theory as means for potential forms of solution to the imminent problems it faces. Xhixha’s design installation ‘Bliss’ operates in response to these current affairs, looking at our civilizations constant need for utopian thought, because it guarantees the progression of society allowing for greater emancipation. Through Xhixha’s structure for the 2016 London Design Biennale, the artist has worked to address this current issue by including an outline of the border of Europe at the center of the piece. The very symbolic nature of this border as a modern day ‘Shangri-la’, ties in well with the necessity for utopian thought within our current time of change.
As well as reflecting on this contemporary affair, in which Europe is redefining itself, the Albanian artist has looked back to far older ideas of utopian theory as a source for inspiration. In what is perhaps Plato’s most influential work The Republic, the Greek philosopher worked hard to immaculately develop his ‘Ideal City’, which manifested itself in a fictional place called ‘Kallipolis’. Arguably the most meaningful reading of The Republic is the analogy Plato tries to draw between the State and the Soul, the city and the individual. He believed that the fundamental morality for the perfect society was one based on the notion of justice; and thus to achieve social justice (within the state) each individual must have internal justice (within the soul). For Plato, the shape of the soul mirrored that of the state; one could not be complete without the other. Again Xhixha has taken inspiration from this notion of duality and pluralism. Four tall mirrors stand at the center of the design allowing the individual to gaze upon their own image, giving time for personal contemplation and allowing for people to address their mirror image and internal perceptions. As well as this function, the sculpture operates as a place where people can sit and interact with one another, engaging on a social level. This addresses the need for community within the ideal city. Clear parallels can be drawn here with Plato’s Ideal City, a place of harmony between the external and the internal. Plato’s ideal city, as with every utopia, has its totalizing aspects. Xhixha’s structure as the utopian idea is imperfect in itself; the same could be said about modern Europe with its social stratification.
Another, highly important source of inspiration for Xhixha’s design is that of the late Renaissance artists interpretations of the Ideal City, especially with regard to their iconography. Repeatedly, artists attempted to create their own visual representation of utopia, with the recurring theme throughout these works being the use of concentric circles. Tomasso Campanella’s ‘City of the Sun’, for example, uses circular rings make up the walls of the city as though they are layers, the same is true of Bartolomeo Del Bene’s ‘City of Truth’. The circle is a universal symbol with extensive meaning. It represents the notions of totality, wholeness, original perfection, the Self, the infinite, eternity, timelessness, all cyclic movement, God and more. The rich symbolic meanings that surround the circle makes it seem a fitting shape for any renaissance artist to adopt into their imagined, ideal society.
Xhixha has returned to these ideas and applied the use of concentric circles into his own sculpture. The shape of the sculpture, with its benches oscillating outwards from the center, draw clear inspiration from the Renaissance ideal cities. The benches offer a place for interaction and engagement with one another, reflecting the need for a sense of community and unification within society. Sitting on the benches and looking into the central mirrors, we are forced into a position of interaction with the people around us and with our own reflection. Xhixha’s structure reflects not only ourselves, but the others who chose to sit on the benches.
Xhixha’s “Bliss” is a sculptor’s attempt to answer the problems which Europe currently faces, it is a commentary on the individual as well as diversity within community, and references a rich history of utopian ideals.
