CONVERSATION PIT

On the first weekend of December, PIN–UP transformed the first-floor lounge of Press Play, Pioneer Works’ “weekend-long fair of books, records, art, ephemera, talks, and workshops,” into an industrial, cushiony respite away from the rest of the over 130 exhibitors, artists, musicians, and poets featured in the program. With nearly 5,000 attendees this year, Pioneer Works transformed into a vibrant nexus of creativity and exchange. Next to a table filled with PIN–UP’s newest issues — namely, the PIN–UP 37 Museum Issue and the collectible Smell Edition by artist and chemist Sissel Tolaas — along with rare back issues from our archive, designers Katharina Sauermann and Ibrahim Kombarji created a seating solution inspired by 70s conversation pits. Made from an aluminium box truss repurposed from the Pioneer Works archive — the kind used for a live performance lighting and stage rig — and sound-dampening foam panels that were rolled, tightened, laid flat, curved, and stacked, the pit was positioned close to the ground to take advantage of the integrated floor heating of the Pioneer Works space, which conducted warmth into the panels as fairgoers sat on them. “Inspired by the ephemeral nature of Tolaas’s work, we wanted to create an intimate yet playful and sensory retreat that invited everyone — young and old — to take off their shoes, pause, and connect with the invisible realities that construct our perceptions,” says Sauermann and Kombarji of their design for the PIN–UP Lounge, which was supported by The Norwegian Consulate in New York, and became a gathering pit for kids and fatigued visitors alike.

Two screens framed the custom-built seating installation — one played a live feed of the various talks that happened throughout Pioneer Works at Press Play that weekend, the other showed PIN–UP’s Margaux Esclapez-directed video of Tolaas describing her special edition cover, perfumed with a bespoke scent Tolaas has named “Ozone,” which she describes as smelling like “nothing.” For Press Play’s after party, artist Alex Tatarsky, whose practice blends performance, comedy, and clowning, took the stage/pit for a performance inspired by “Ozone.” At one point, Tatarsky doused themself in a pomegranate-scented perfume they borrowed from someone in the crowd. Shortly after, they thoroughly chewed up a dollar bill.