Soft Matters

Alicja Prusinska and Zuzia Siedlecka

Soft Matters is a spatial practice founded by Alicja Prusinska and Zuzia Siedlecka, two architects whose work navigates the boundaries between the natural and artificial. Their installations emerge from specific contexts and are shaped by tactile storytelling, often using overlooked or discarded materials. With a strong material sensitivity, Soft Matters explores themes of transformation, waste, and ecology, crafting forms that blur the line between sculpture, architecture, and design. Their work is a physical invitation to rethink our relationship with matter, visible or invisible, raw or processed, and with the spaces we inhabit.

In conversation with Soft Matters during the exhibition Oltre la pietra at Castelgrande, Bellinzona.

What is the purpose in your work?

We are Alicja Prusinska and Zuzia Siedlecka from Soft Matters, and we both have a background in architecture, which strongly influences our work. In general, everything we produce is very context-based, so we often react to an existing environment or to a certain aspect of it that drives us.

Tell us about the project you exhibited at Oltre la pietra

The piece we’re presenting here is essentially a second iteration of a project we initially created for the Biennale in Lugano. That project was centered around waste reuse, considering contemporary discussions on sustainability and ecology. But it also explored the discrepancy between manmade and natural elements, and how we position ourselves within that. What we always try to do is tell a story, or find a kind of transformation between these two worlds, which produces a spatial effect, one that's deeply tied to materials and forms, things we naturally work with as architects. There’s a very tactile feeling in the object, and we always think about how it’s going to change the space where we place it. We were thinking about these two pieces, (...) and their shared story of transformation. We wanted to build furniture-like installations that people could use during the event, concert, or exhibition. And with this story and the materials we used, such as green waste from the city and agriculture, like grass or dry organic matter, there’s also an additional narrative. For the Biennale in Lugano, we created a braid using a Christmas tree wrapping machine and filled it with green waste. It’s a gentle material that interacts well with weather conditions. For example, after a while, mushrooms started growing out of it. Thus it became this story of transformation that depends on context.
Here at Matazz, we had to deal with the weather and consider what we would do if it rained. That transformative narration became even more specific to this place. We were building in the entrance designed by Galfetti, and some people told us we were creating the installation in the “belly of the castle.” For us, it was this moment of visible, and sometimes invisible, changes in conditions. When you entered the space, you could smell the hay. It was sensual. But at the same time, as soon as someone started speaking, the acoustics would shift and become softer. Visually, it felt like we were hugging the belly from the inside. That’s why storytelling plays a big role in our work. In Lugano, the theme was Back to the Future, so for the form, we wanted to create something that looked like a spaceship that had just landed on the lawn. And here in Bellinzona, people told us it looked like “the belly of the beast.” With these intestines of hay, we achieved a very different feeling, because the space here is literally inside the rock. And suddenly, you have this green hay structure crawling out of the hallway.
In Lugano, the spaceship element was more contained. But here, because we had more variables and unexpected things happening, we wanted to embrace that and make it part of the story, working around the things that came up. For our sculpture, we used hay from local agriculture and the netting typically used for wrapping Christmas trees. We also used a tube that we rented from a nearby company, which we’ll hopefully return soon. In Lugano, we collaborated with the company that already took care of the garden where the installation was placed. We got palm cuttings from trees that were already growing there. Here, it’s only hay, but still part of the vocabulary of agricultural waste. We’re trying to make invisible materials visible and show them in an unexpected form.

What’s the purpose of your work?

It’s always interesting not to think of art and artists as living in a bubble, disconnected from other fields. In architecture, it’s very similar; it can become quite inward, and sometimes it becomes harder to relate to people outside of that world. Even in the language we use, or the events we attend, it’s often just architects talking to architects. The same happens with artists. So we really enjoy breaking those borders and looking for loopholes or small ways in which these pieces, sculptures, or interventions can speak to a broader audience. The most pleasant moments are when we’re working and people pass by, touching the hay or commenting on the smell. These are the moments when you know people are connecting, and that’s very important. We’re working transdisciplinarily, coming in as architects but also seeing art a bit like a raindrop falling into water, everything intertwines. There are different fields we want to connect with our attitude and approach to architecture (...). We believe in the ideology of staying curious. Matazz really surprised us with perfect organization and a lot of energy. They were always welcoming and open to our ideas, even when we changed them a thousand times. They remained kind, gentle, and professional throughout. We were driven by their energy and attitude; it felt like a surprisingly good annex. And in such a beautiful space, we had the chance to meet many other artists. Being between the fields of architecture and art, it was very refreshing to see different disciplines, some of which are usually a bit distant from our own. It really felt like a great crossing point.