Post by Vania Zema

Freedom. A sensory ritual inside a 350-year-old palace. Art Direction · Brand Direction · Experience Design · Palácio do Grilo, Lisbon · 2022 Freedom was the launch of Sparkle, an event studio by Arina Romantsevich inside Palácio do Grilo, the immersive palace project of French director Julien Labrousse. I worked both as the artist behind Freedom and as Sparkle’s brand director, creating the identity, positioning and launch experience. Forty-two guests entered barefoot. Three rooms carried three custom scents inspired by the ocean, the field and the forest. Ambient compositions built from natural recordings played for six hours. Photographs printed on translucent chiffon hung between rooms like Portuguese laundry, echoed by performers wearing the same fabric. Dinner became part of the installation. A dessert cracked like ocean sand. Butter carried the scent of the sea. The evening ended in the palace chapel with a foot washing ritual. I washed each guest’s feet and helped them put their shoes back on, one by one. All forty-two guests stayed until the very end. "Vania's sensory approach played a major role in building the brand. The launch was so vivid that four years later people still mention it when they meet me. His team of creators, assembled specifically for the project, made it unique and unforgettable." Arina Romantsevich, founder of Sparkle "I don't make beautiful images. I work with the organs of perception." #experiencedesign #artdirection #lisbon

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