ĒTER: Nail Salon

Obsession with the sensory, imaginative physical world, alongside complete, evolving prototypes of public spaces is taking the form of a Nail Salon in Vienna. Contemporary nail art and salon culture becomes a portal for jumping scales, directly connecting the human body to a world of sensory and haptic materials. The installation is set out to explore the phenomenon of wellbeing juxtaposed with fragments of architectural practice. In the opening act @Pinkyswear_studio will execute one-off nail designs with visitors lying on the daybeds, tucked in a heavy blanket with deep sound waves reverberating through their gut. The exhibition is a fraction of an ongoing search for clues to a new-or-perhaps-forgotten-kind of awareness of the built environment and a desire for profound togetherness.

Silent retreats, autogenic training, ASMR, breathing techniques, digital detox, embracing the joy of missing out (JOMO instead of FOMO)—to name a few spatial practices of self-medication against stress, anxiety, loneliness and insomnia. An asorti of Media Chapel, Nail Salon and a Backdoor Club, the exhibition integrates 1:1 scale furniture prototypes, material experiments, architectural models, videos and photography in a democratic social space, open towards these domains.

Through the Baltic outlet of our practice, we maintain close ties with contemporary culture, arts and technology. These ties are often set up in a non-reglament, direct way. We see the Baltics not only as a free, experimental platform, but also as Europe’s political frontier of the Middle-North, undergoing a process of decolonization in research and development.

ĒTER is a partnership of Kārlis Bērziņš, Dagnija Smilga and Niklāvs Paegle—architects, researchers and educators operating between Alps and Baltic coastline. Shortlisted by Dezeen.com as one of the 29 emerging practices in the world 2022, and selected by Platformarchitecture.it for Europe's “40 under 40” young architects, ĒTER is focused on creating unique environments at the intersection of nature, technology and contemporary culture. In 2022, Daycare centre "Pērle" received the Grand Prix of Latvian Architecture Award and EUmies award nomination, while Weird Sensation Feels Good: The World of ASMR at London Design Museum won the Dezeen Award for best exhibition architecture. The origins of the practice stem from jointly created Baltic Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, for the first time in history representing Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in a single exhibition.

Credits
Exhibition architecture & content: ĒTER (Dagnija Smilga, Kārlis Bērziņš, Niklāvs Paegle)
Recycled plastic curtain: ĒTER collaboration with Heidija Ūberga and Letīcija Kalvāne
Club photography: Pēteris Vīksna
Club sound: Oliver Brunbauer
Nail art performance: Pinkyswear

MAGAZIN is an exhibition space for contemporary architecture in Vienna run by Jerome Becker and Matthias Moroder. MAGAZIN presents the work of local and international architects in solo exhibitions that are especially conceived for the spaces in the Rembrandtstrasse location—framed by corresponding lectures, panel discussions and publications.