Until 31 December, a former slaughterhouse district in Stockholm is showing the sculpted version of the slide from Soneva’s overwater villas. The resort fixture becomes an artist’s piece, and the question is what it gains in the process.
Soneva says it installed slides on its stilted Maldives villas well before they became common in luxury hospitality. That curve over the Indian Ocean ended up becoming the Maison’s signature. Swedish artist Jacob Felländer has drawn a sculpture from it, unveiled on 23 September at Slakthusområdet, Stockholm’s former meat district, at an evening reserved for friends of the Maison and its long-standing clients.
The work layers three materials. A raw metal, patinated by time, stands for the past, in the Maison’s reading. A mirror surface represents the present, with its reflections and movement. A final, lighter layer opens onto the future. This grid is simple, perhaps too simple: rusted metal for the past and mirror for the present are sculptors’ conventions more than discoveries. The interest lies elsewhere. A slide is for going down, and Felländer makes of it a piece about movement, in an industrial setting rented for the evening.
The dinner was built on the same principle of translation. Chefs Adam Dahlberg and Albin Wessman designed a menu around the Maison’s three islands: earth for Soneva Fushi and its jungle, water for Soneva Jani, air for Soneva Secret and its seclusion. The last course was called Whimsy. Soneva sees in it an application of what it calls Bare Luxury, a philosophy that strips away the superfluous to leave room for wonder and curiosity.
CEO Neil Gallagher states that the slide was never just a slide. Jacob Felländer defends the place of imagination, intuition and play in a world he considers increasingly regulated, and speaks of a collaboration that continues. It will continue in concrete terms in the Maldives, where the artist will be in residence at Soneva Fushi as “Soneva Star” from 12 to 24 November, leading creative workshops with guests.
This sequel shows where the stakes lie. An installation in Stockholm speaks to Swedes who are not yet clients, and workshops in the Maldives to clients who already are. The test of the work is whether it holds up without having stayed on the islands. I cannot answer that without having seen it.
Also on Luxsure: The Stage at Le Meurice: six dinners, 24 guests a night, an installation by Harry Nuriev · Artycapucines at the Grand Palais: seven years of works translated into leather · In Santa Fe, the Art Concierge organises access to galleries · Women In Motion in Tokyo: Japanese cinema between museum and production
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