2025 UP IN THE AIR 
CAMPATO IN ARIA
Location
ALESSANDRO PASERO
CARLOTTA OLIOSI

“Campato in Aria” is an Italian idiom that means something without solid foundation: uncertain, loose, unfounded. It suggests being “pitched (or camped) in the air”. Campato derives from Campare [To survive] which derives from Campo [Camp]

By moving and dancing around, the jingle of the coins sewn into Armenian dancers’ dresses banishes bad omens as it recalls the crash of thunder. By turning toward nature, people seek reassurance. Spinning on stage, the red skirt of their dress becomes a tent for an instant, embedding itself in the collective local imagery.

The tent is the origin of architecture and its ghostly memory. It’s the quickest way to produce space with the lightest of material means. But not only that: it speaks of time, fragility and collectivity.

The project weaves together local, historical and atmospheric conditions. It serves as an observatory from Victoria Park, on the north hill of Yerevan. It provides shelter from the sun, it occupies space to rest and to gathers.

The project is made of a dodecagonal fabric supported by 12 steel cables around a central pole, covering around 50sqm of space. The nylon textile is embroidered with over 320 oversized coins, resembling the dancing skirts, that jingle when the wind blows.

Twelve rocks, found on site, serve as foundations. The central element is a metal totem of 3.5 m height and 1m diameter of base, crowned by a horizontal pole of 1.25 m.

This element holds, above the covering, the objects that visualize the wind direction and intensity by moving, drawing on the materiality of meteorological stations: anemometers, a flag and a neon light.

Campato in Aria displays the air data and makes them sense through sound and movement.