nituniyo creates cardboard elephant with 6,000 recycled tubes

nituniyo creates cardboard elephant with 6,000 recycled tubes 
all images courtesy of nituniyo

the fallas festival takes place annually in the city of valencia, spain. for a few days each year, the city transforms into a frantic amalgamation of parties, fireworks, tourists, and of course, viewing sculptures. on the night of march 19th, the last night of the city-wide celebration, each sculpture or installation is burned in a special ceremony.

visitors wander through the installation 

spanish studio nituniyo — standing for neither you nor I — was commissioned by the falla castielfabib to create a work for this year’s event. for the few days the festival is on, main public areas such as monuments are essentially shut down with fences. doing so prevents any damage that could be caused by the huge increase of pedestrians, but it creates a disconnect between the visitors and venue.

sand surrounding the sculpture gives it a sense of setting 

nituniyo decided to create an alternate space that includes passersby in the celebration. that is, allowing the monument to be approached and touched without restriction. their realized piece, ‘somnis de pes’ or ‘dreams of weight’ takes the form of an elephant — animals are a common theme in the studio’s work — to encourage children (and adults) to play with it.

rather than use polystyrene, typically used in the festival, nituniyo took advantage of hollow cardboard tubes. the recycled material is much more pleasant to burn than polymer, and allows for another component of the design. visitors are offered to write their dreams and desires on colored papers, then stuff them into the cell-like structure. when full, the semi-transparent elephant is solidified in the landscape. as with all installations, ‘somnis de pes’ was burnt on the evening of march 19th. 

detail of ‘somnis de pes’ 

visitors were encouraged to interact with the piece 

a child plays near the sculpture 

spectators could write wishes and dreams on pieces of paper, then insert it into a tube 

a visitor adds a wish to the work 

detail of cardboard and papers 

close-up of burning sculpture 

‘somnis de pes’ was burned on march 19th  

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: nick brink | designboom