ENCOUNTER
Participatory Installation
Red carpet
Dimension variable
2020
In Encounter, geometry meets social interaction. The floor installation is based on the simplest of the Islamic Girih patterns, traditionally associated with divine order and perfection. By translating it into a “red carpet” and inviting viewers to walk barefoot along its narrow paths, Jacomella Bonola transforms mathematical harmony into a participatory experience of balance, proximity, and collision.
The work subverts the red carpet’s connotations of privilege and spectacle, recoding it as a site of equality and negotiation. Movement becomes metaphor: each step a microcosm of coexistence and tension within shared space. Encounter reflects on the need to redefine perfection, not as symmetry or exclusivity, but as collective adaptation.
Credist: © Patricia Jacomella Bonola © Dominik Zietlow