As cities go, Venice is the very definition of immersive. No wonder, then, that immersion was a recurring theme during the opening week of the city’s 61st Biennale—from Marina Abramovic’s 12 Years of Ulay at the Cukcarna Gallery to Jordan Roth’s stunning performance channelling 16th century artist, musician, and society beauty Irene di Spilimbergo in the Palazzo dei Fiori.
We can now add the experiential work dreamt up by the renowned Los Angeles creative studio Playlab Inc. and its The Forest For The Trees installation, which was commissioned by Golden Goose. On Friday evening, the Italian brand hosted a dinner to celebrate—and true to form, it was magical, fun, and more than a little bit madcap.
For the uninitiated, Playlab Inc. has had a hand in shaping visual language across fashion, pop culture, and entertainment for decades. Think: Virgil Abloh’s Louis Vuitton outings, videos for Post Malone, and their current pursuit of reimagining the Westminster Dog Show.
Located at Haus, Golden Goose’s cultural hub in the industrial port area of Maghera, The Forest For The Trees is an interactive exploration through both the natural world and the imagination. The viewer moves through spaces, connecting with an almost fairytale version of flora and fauna, before painting their own tree and planting it into a toy-like forest which is then projected on the walls around them.
Silvio Campara, CEO at Golden Goose, revealed that there was no definitive direction given to Playlab Inc., allowing the creatives to run wild. “The priority is to always deliver a message of freedom and creativity to everyone, and they understood that perfectly,” Campara said during a pre-dinner aperitivo hour. “And we thought it would be interesting to explore that with them because we had a mutual friend, Virgil Abloh; I am not sure many people know, but Virgil did one of our first collaborations back in 2013.”
The carte blanch was a breath of fresh air for Playlab Inc.’s Archie Lee Coates IV, Jeff Franklin, and Ana Cecilia Thompson Motta, too. “We wanted an almost Hollywood-like immersive backdrop,” said Coates, in town from Los Angeles for the celebration. “A set that transported you to a storybook that doesn’t exist. We’re living in a world that’s so cynical now, that you could almost see that [desire] as corny—but for Jeff, Ana, and I, we’re optimistic people, and we wanted to choose optimism.”
For those attending the proverbial ribbon cutting, a walk through the fictional forest ended up in a dining space enclosed by painted wooden trees and woodland animals. Long dining tables were covered in foliage and flora—some of which was edible, like baskets of asparagus and crispy wild leaves. Wild herbs, smoked potatoes, and rosemary was served first, followed by a mushroom and tobacco risotto with almond milk and calamint.
The crowd included artists Lola Schnabel, Youssef Nabil, and Charlote Rose, as well as up-and-comer Sean Koons; actor Arjun Kapoor; architect Tessa Sakhi; Olympic skateboarders Keegan Palmer and Cory Juneau; filmmaker Sinbad Guggenheim; and pianist Alberto Bof.
Despite the eclectic guestlist, conversation, unsurprisingly, kept drifting back to art; how Schnabel has relocated to Sicily after many years in New York to pursue her work, while Nabil is readying himself for the opening of a major solo show at Paris’s Musee d’Orsay. And it all continued in that direction until the water taxis arrived, ready for the moonlit journey back home.
