Butterfly House at the MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art – Rome

This award winning installation, titled “are you really sure that a floor can’t also be a ceiling?” is by the Dutch art collective Bik Van Deer Pol. The collective comprises of Liesbeth Bik and Jos van der Pol, both of which have worked under the name Bik Van Deer Pol collectively since 1995. The work won the Enel Contemporanea Award 2010 and was presented at the official opening of the new permanent wing of the MACRO museum of contemporary art in Rome. The installation is based on the famous Farnsworth House by Mies van der Rohe.
The Installation includes hundreds of butterflies within, which as a result of scientific assistance are able to exist within what is virtually a natural habitat. Visitors are encouraged to enter the work and to undergo the sensory experience directly, but in order to protect the ideal micro climate there is a strict maximum number of people allowed inside at any given time. According to Designboom ‘the artists reflect on the relationship between man and nature starting with butterflies, now understood to be among the species most sensitive to climate change, so much so that they can be seen as a true indicator of environmental conditions.’