The project takes inspiration from the lack of time and the anxious struggle of being always up to date in the current society; it has the intention to lend time and open an interval giving people the strength of going back to everyday life with the ability of making space and time. From a practical point of view, the project is an individual and collective performance at the same time. At the entrance, visitors can ask how much time they desire; their decision is personal, inviolable and not retroactive. The required time is converted in a quantity of clay, according to the ratio: 1 second = 1 gram. While participants freely shape the clay for the duration established at the entrance, timers monitor the duration available and warn when the time is up. When timer alarm sounds, people leave the clay where they prefer and can wash their hands. As the performance go on, an exposition of sculptures is progressively generated. The project explores the value of time and reflects on human attempts of controlling, sculpting and consuming the temporal dimension, an element which is becoming more and more elusive in our era: people can ask time, take it, shape it, hold it in their hands, stroke it. The project allows the collectivity finding the time which had been lost; in other words, it is an action not aiming at the realization of a commercial product, but at reviving a sleeping desire. Present age is characterized by a frenetic transformation, it is made of sudden acceleration and breaking, impellent deadlines and endless updates. The consequences are tragic because the society is exhausted and deprived of time, the most important and essential resource. The project raises questions about the value of making time as well as space, it offers an experience characterized by gratuity and grace and empowers the individual within a community.
