Simonetta Moro

Peripatetic Box

peripatetic box whole peripatetic box legend peripatetic box seen from the side peripatetic box detail peripatetic box detail peripatetic box detail peripatetic box moodometer peripatetic box cover text peripatetic box top peripatetic box closed dress for walking dress map

Mapping the Self Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

Conflux 08 Center for Architecture, New York

peripatetic box whole

Peripatetic Box, 2007
Mixed media, 9"x12"x2" (closed)
The Peripatetic Box deals with the idea of portability, miniaturization and systematic investigation of a given context – in this case the space of the city - and the emotional response that it provokes. It consists of a “tool kit” that provides the opportunity to construct an “active” guide to the city.  The user of the box can creates her itinerary by answering questions, writing comments on prepared cards, drawing maps and collecting various materials. The box can only be “filled” (and therefore completed) by the action of the user, through her direct experience of moving through the city (therefore the word: peripatetic. Learning by walking). In the box there are several categories, illustrating “facts” of the city (the elements of which it is made); the user will add his or her personal response to them, therefore creating another layer – the “emotional” element – that associates places in the city with certain feelings, emotions and ideas about the place.
The Peripatetic Box was initially developed during my residency in the workshop of Marjetica Potrč at the Sommerakademie in Salzburg.