{"id":122716,"date":"2025-09-06T08:13:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T08:13:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/122716\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T08:13:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T08:13:21","slug":"hay-bales-unroll-into-trace-of-land-installation-across-alpine-terrain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/122716\/","title":{"rendered":"hay bales unroll into trace of land installation across alpine terrain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ELSE Design reinterprets the hay bale as a sculptural installation<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Trace of Land by ELSE Design reinterprets the hay bale as a spatial <a href=\"https:\/\/www.designboom.com\/tag\/interactive-installation\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">installation<\/a> that unfolds across the pastures of Val Badia in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.designboom.com\/tag\/architecture-in-italy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Italian Dolomites<\/a>. Presented as part of SMACH 2025, the international open-air art biennale, the project transforms an agricultural object into a canopy-like structure that follows the terrain, offering places for shade, rest, and gathering.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.designboom.com\/tag\/land-art\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">land art<\/a> installation takes the form of a continuous path of unfurled hay bales that move with the contours of the alpine landscape. Removed from its functional role in farming, the hay bale becomes both <a href=\"https:\/\/www.designboom.com\/tag\/sculpture\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sculptural<\/a> and architectural, drawing attention to the relationship between human labor, tools, and the land.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" bad-src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" alt=\"hay bales unroll into trace of land installation across alpine terrain in italy\" width=\"818\" height=\"545\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/trace-of-land-hay-bales-unrolls-into-installation-across-alpine-terrain-1-68b237e688f7d.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" lazyload\"\/><br \/>all images by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.guworld.com\/_plata\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Gustav Willeit<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Trace of Land becomes a site for reflection on land and labor<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Typically seen as iconic remnants of agrarian life, hay bales are in fact products of industrialized processes, bundled, stored, and transported by machinery. In Trace of Land, this industrial form is loosened and reshaped, creating a structure that alternates between lying on the ground and lifting lightly to form shaded passages. The result is a temporary canopy that mediates between agricultural efficiency and natural setting.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The installation by ELSE Design <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elsedesign.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Studio<\/a> aligns with SMACH\u2019s 2025 theme, la cu, the Ladin word for whetstone, a tool used to sharpen harvesting blades, by highlighting the reciprocity between human work and landscape. Visitors are invited to walk along and beneath the structure, using rectangular bales arranged as seating to pause and reflect. As time passes, the hay will naturally decompose, returning to the soil and completing a cycle of use and renewal, reinforcing the installation\u2019s dialogue between cultivation, transformation, and the environment.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" bad-src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" alt=\"hay bales unroll into trace of land installation across alpine terrain in italy\" width=\"818\" height=\"491\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/trace-of-land-hay-bales-unrolls-into-installation-across-alpine-terrain-4-68b237e689063.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" lazyload\"\/><br \/>Trace of Land unfolds across the alpine pastures of Val Badia<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" bad-src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" alt=\"hay bales unroll into trace of land installation across alpine terrain in italy\" width=\"818\" height=\"1227\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/trace-of-land-hay-bales-unrolls-into-installation-across-alpine-terrain-2-68b237e688feb.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" lazyload\"\/><br \/>ELSE Design reinterprets the hay bale as a sculptural installation<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" bad-src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" alt=\"hay bales unroll into trace of land installation across alpine terrain in italy\" width=\"818\" height=\"545\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/trace-of-land-hay-bales-unrolls-into-installation-across-alpine-terrain-7-68b237e6890fd.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" lazyload\"\/><br \/>unfurled hay bales create a meandering canopy through the landscape<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" bad-src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" alt=\"hay bales unroll into trace of land installation across alpine terrain in italy\" width=\"818\" height=\"545\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/trace-of-land-hay-bales-unrolls-into-installation-across-alpine-terrain-8-68b237e689130.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" lazyload\"\/><br \/>the structure follows the natural contours of the alpine terrain<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" bad-src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP\/\/\/yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7\" alt=\"hay bales unroll into trace of land installation across alpine terrain in italy\" width=\"818\" height=\"460\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/trace-of-land-hay-bales-unrolls-into-installation-across-alpine-terrain-9-68b237e689161.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" lazyload\"\/><br \/>the installation offers shaded spaces for gathering and reflection<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ELSE Design reinterprets the hay bale as a sculptural installation \u00a0 Trace of Land by ELSE Design reinterprets&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6324,449,458,459,64,63,460,134,3807,57968],"class_list":{"0":"post-122716","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-architecture-in-italy","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-au","13":"tag-australia","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-interactive-installation","17":"tag-land-art"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}